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May 11, 2009

North Korean Isolation Creates Opening for Chinese Diplomacy

With all the drama going on so far this year concerning North Korea, there seems to be one thing missing: China. Whether this is a case of silent diplomacy that the rest of the world will never hear of or testimony to the fragility of the Mainland’s relationship with North Korea, I cannot say, but China’s influence on the DPRK has played a major role in how concerned powers have dealt with the Kim Jong Il regime in the past...

Categories China
April 11, 2009

China’s Fingerprints Are All Over North Korea’s Missiles

Not long before the United Nations went limp in the face of North Korea’s missile launch, our own high priest of Smart Diplomacy called on our friends the ChiComs to do their part to restore the rule of law we know them to treasure as we do: “China could do a great deal more,” [Vice President Joe] Biden said, without elaborating. [AFP] On the contrary, according to this report, it appears that China has done quite enough: The rocket launched...

Categories China/China & Korea/Missiles/Proliferation
March 24, 2009

Great Ideas That Won’t Work: A Korea-Japan Alliance

For reasons I laid out here in January, pragmatism is making gradual gains on emotion in Seoul and forcing Japan and South Korea to understand that their interests have aligned: A senior South Korean government official recently remarked that if the U.S. and North Korea speed up too much in bilateral talks, Japan could play a role in “slamming on the brakes.” He appeared to be suggesting that any bilateral negotiations bringing Washington and Pyongyang together after the North has...

Categories Asia/China/Geopolitics
February 21, 2009

Human Rights Industry Reaps What It Sows; Humanity Loses

If I had to pick one single moment when the Human Rights Industry lost its focus on the objective measurement of evil, this statement by Amnesty International General Secretary Irene Khan may be it: “A new agenda is in the making, with the language of freedom and justice being used to pursue policies of fear and insecurity. This includes cynical attempts to redefine and sanitise torture,” said Ms Khan. She said the US claimed to be promoting freedom in Iraq,...

Categories Activism/China/Human Rights
February 20, 2009

An Olympic Verdict

At the National Review, Jay Nordlinger reviews the arguments that bringing the Olympics to Beijing would pressure and encourage the Chinese authorities to liberalize and soften their oppression. Nordlinger finds the evidence to be quite the opposite, and I would go a step further: the ruling party not only amplified its oppression to keep the Olympics scripted, it successfully harnessed widespread foreign disapproval of its oppression to galvanize nationalist support for its worst policies. Today, we see a China that...

Categories China
February 5, 2009

Hyperinflation in North Korea?

Exchange rates for North Korean currency are collapsing, according to Open Radio. True, a collapse in exchange rates means only so much when your currency isn’t convertible, but North Korea’s irresistable bottom-up transition to a market economy — despite the regime’s best efforts — means this will hurt both the privileged and the underprivileged who are trading with China to get food. One of the costs of doing cross-border business is the price of bribing North Korean border guards. That...

Categories China & Korea/NK Economics
February 4, 2009

Diplomacy, Hubris, and the ‘Management’ of Sociopaths

The United States warned North Korea Tuesday that any testing of its longest-range missile would be seen as “provocative,” amid signs the reclusive Stalinist state could be preparing a launch. “North Korea’s missile activities and, you know, missile programs are a concern to the region. There’s no secret there,” said State Department spokesman Robert Wood. “And a ballistic missile launch by North Korea would be unhelpful and, frankly, provocative.” [AFP] Who believes that a statement like this is anything other...

Categories Appeasement/China/Diplomacy/Uncategorized
December 5, 2008

Book Review: Escaping North Korea, by Mike Kim

[By Guest Blogger, Dan Bielefeld] A couple months ago I saw something about a new book by a Korean American who had lived in China for four years helping North Koreans.  This really caught my attention — I’ve heard of such people but I don’t know a lot about them since most of their work is done in secret.  To pique my interest a bit further, he’s from the same part of the country I am (he’s from Chicago, I’m...

Categories Activism/Books & Films/China/Refugees
November 26, 2008

Tokdoheit 451: Let’s have an essay contest!

There appears to be no end to Korea’s passion for insignificant, isolated scraps of land. Some 85.5 percent of the 451 islets in the Apnok (or Yalu) and Duman (or Tumen) rivers on the border between North Korea and China properly belong to the North, an academic claims. Prof. Suh Kil-soo of Seokyeong University makes the claim in a study of the border along Mt. Baekdu and the two rivers, which will be released in a seminar of the Koguryo...

Categories China & Korea/Korean Society/Unintended Humor
November 23, 2008

Some Human Rights Updates

The Korea Times reports that a joint committee of the U.S. Congress has recommended that the government establish a special task force aimed at persuading the Chinese to stop repatriating North Korean refugees. On the less hopeful side, we still don’t have a clear idea of how much priority the executive branch is going to give this issue, and to phrase this gently, I don’t expect Hillary Clinton’s policies to be unduly influenced by sentimental considerations. The commission recommends appropriating...

Categories China & Korea/Refugees/U.S. Politics
November 10, 2008

More Light Blogging for a While Longer

Things have been busy at work, and weekends and holidays have become rare and valuable time to spend with my family, so I’m going to slow the tempo here for a while.  How long?  Depends on events, I suppose, but at time when everyone’s attention is on other events here at home seems like a good time for that.  The kids are young.  They won’t be young forever.  We had a great weekend out seeing things together. One interesting story...

Categories China
September 30, 2008

Korean Kids Face Twin Perils: Poisoned Chinese Milk, Moms Who Use them as Human Riot Shields

Update, 12/08: Here’s how history will record this whole ridiculous episode. BY NOW, WE KNOW THAT THERE WAS NEVER ANY SCIENTIFIC SUBSTANCE BEHIND all of those “Mad Cow” protests in Korea over the imports of U.S. beef.  So why so little protest over melamine contamination in food imported from China poses an actual, no-sh*t health risk to Korean kids who drink powdered milk?   It might even be a greater risk to the health of Korean kids than strapping them...

Categories Anti-Americanism/China & Korea/Korean Society/The Fifth Column
September 29, 2008

Do the Koreans Have a Future?

We’re all familiar with many of the ways in which the lives of North and South Koreans differ.  The Economist has published an interesting new piece describing some of these way, but which eventually focuses on the demographics of both nations and the greater region.  No doubt, from those differences arise very different reasons why the populations of both nations are declining. As to why the South’s population is declining at one of the fastest rates in the OECD, it’s...

Categories China & Korea/North Korea/South Korea
August 6, 2008

Chinese Regime Loses the P.R. Game Before the Opening Ceremony

A friend who recently visted China with his Chinese wife tells me that  today, there are banners in Beijing telling people in great detail how to make small talk and answer questions asked by foreigners.  Chinese are even instructed on what Hollywood celebreties they like.  That’s a lot of elaborate effort to go to only to screw up your P.R. effort this badly just before those other  games begin: MEDIA RELATIONS: The beating of two Japanese journalists by police in...

Categories China
June 30, 2008

Times of London: N. Korean Snipers Shooting Refugees

You read it here first, but now it’s getting some big media coverage: North Korean guards, newly armed with Russian Dragunov sniper rifles, have shot dead refugees attempting to ford the river that divides their hungry homeland from China, according to human rights campaigners. On the Chinese shore alone, two bodies, marked by several bullet holes, were found by a local activist, said Tim Peters, an American pastor who runs a Christian group supporting the fugitives. The shootings indicate a...

Categories China/China & Korea/Human Rights/Refugees