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February 16, 2013

China Plays Rope-a-Dope

OFK REGULARS KNOW that I view Shen Dingli as the living, breathing embodiment of everything about China’s government that’s maleficent, loathsome, arrogant, and neo-imperialist (to re-expropriate a term from the Marxists).  Shen, a professor of “American studies,” regular visitor to Pyongyang, and frequent contributor to influential publications abroad, often appears to represent the views of his government, which ordinarily spares no effort to censor even the most insignificant weibo. In this murky capacity, Shen publicly green-lighted North Korea’s 2006 nuke test and reacted...

Categories China & Korea
January 18, 2013

Xi Jinping Outsources Meeting With Park Geun-Hye to His Food Taster

China’s unhelpful behavior in the Security Council would have been reason enough for Park Geun Hye to follow the example of Shinzo Abe,* who deferred meeting with Chinese officials and instead met with the leaders of “countries sharing the same values, such as democracy and the rule of law.”  In retrospect, that might have been best: In her meeting with China’s Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Zhijun yesterday, President-elect Park Geun-hye said North Korea’s nuclear weapons development cannot be tolerated and that Seoul...

Categories "United" Nations/China & Korea/Diplomacy
November 27, 2012

ChiComs Behaving Stoopidly: Peoples’ Daily Falls for The Onion’s Award to Kim Jong Un of “Sexiest Man Alive”

As funny as I thought the original parody was at the time, it’s infinitely funnier when humorless authoritarian propagandists don’t realize it’s a parody and put it on Page One.  And while the Onion guys aren’t exactly ruthless in the we-send-children-to-the-gulags-on-Mondays-and-Thursdays sense, they didn’t show the Peoples’ Daily much mercy with this hat tip: UPDATE: For more coverage on The Onion’s Sexiest Man Alive 2012, Kim Jong-Un, please visit our friends at the People’s Daily in China, a proud Communist subsidiary of The...

Categories China/Unintended Humor/WTF?
June 4, 2012

China Targets North Korean Refugees and the Activists Who Help Them

So those reports that China would stop repatriating North Korean refugees were probably disinformation after all. Instead, China is launching yet another pogrom against North Korean refugees, which coincides with a wider sweep against foreigners that got its impetus (or pretext) from one drunken Brit. China is also targeting foreigners who are helping North Korean refugees: “I heard that police and security staff are in every nook of the streets. All defectors must take shelter and cannot come out of...

Categories China & Korea/Human Trafficking/Refugees
May 25, 2012

Nuke Test Watch: One Disease, Many Symptoms

OK, I admit it — I’m disappointed in the North Koreans for wimping out: North Korea on Tuesday ruled out an imminent nuclear weapon test, but vowed to expand and bolster its nuclear deterrence as well as its sovereign right to launch satellites, while slamming the Group of Eight nations’ condemnation of its failed long-range rocket launch in April. In a remark given to Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency, a spokesman for North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said that the North...

Categories Appeasement/China & Korea/Diplomacy/Missiles/Proliferation/WMD
May 24, 2012

If Ever so Briefly, China Picks a Public Fight with North Korea

Not that it matters much to the Chinese government, but North Korea’s seizure of those 28 or 29 fishermen has pissed off a lot of Chinese netizens. No, the Chinese government isn’t about to bow to the demands of Weibo commenters, but the other side of this cause-and-effect relationship is interesting. This outrage, as temporary as it’s sure to be, has to be a consequence of a deliberate decision by the Chinese government to make a public issue of this...

Categories China & Korea
May 3, 2012

The Chen Guangcheng Disgrace

By all accounts, Wang Lijun, who was Bo Xilai’s police in Chongqing, was also a thug. Under the right circumstances, he might have been eligible for relief under the Convention Against Torture, but as a persecutor of others, he would have had a difficult job proving his eligibility for asylum. It was disturbing to see our consulate in Chengdu seem to snooker Wang back into the loving arms of the ChiComs, but it wasn’t tragic. Wang might have provided valuable...

Categories Anju Links/China
April 30, 2012

In Kim Jong Un’s North Korea, China Helps a Few Get Richer

Who would have thought that a reporter could go to Pyongyang and bring home some news in spite of the minders? The economy of the isolated North — where famine killed hundreds of thousands in the 1990s — is widely believed to be battered and stuttering, but the luxury shops of the showcase capital tell a different story. According to expatriates living in the city, there are ever more cars on the roads and traffic in the centre is increasingly...

Categories China/Sanctions
April 29, 2012

What an Interesting Coincidence: China Arms N. Korea, We Arm Taiwan!

Shortly after the disclosure that China sold missile transporters to North Korea, in violation of UNSCR 1695, 1718, and 1874, the White House decides to reconsider a decision about weapons sales to Taiwan: Taiwan said it welcomed the pledge by the United States to reconsider a proposed sale of new fighter jets to the island, a defence deal likely to upset Beijing. Taiwan has been pushing for the purchase of 66 new US-made F-16 fighter jets, but the deal has...

Categories China & Korea/Missiles/Proliferation/Taiwan
March 26, 2012

Obama Intercepts North Korean Missile with Experimental Laser-Guided Words

So President Obama’s visit to Seoul, the nuclear terrorism summit, and the DMZ has concluded without anything especially newsworthy taking place. Obama challenged North Korea to change its behavior and China to help coerce North Korea to change its behavior, but with relatively mild language that won’t deter North Korea from launching the thing. I had wondered whether the dynamic of this being an election year might tempt the President to show a little more spine than he or his...

Categories China/Japan/Missiles
February 24, 2012

China abets the murder of nine North Korean refugees

South Korean legislators on Friday condemned China’s repatriation of fugitives from North Korea after Beijing reportedly sent nine back despite pleas from Seoul. A resolution passed by the committee on foreign affairs and unification urges China to follow international rules in handling North Koreans who flee their impoverished homeland, and seeks outside help to halt the returns. [AFP] Seoul says it might (gasp) raise this with the U.N. Human Rights Council — without mentioning China by name. But despite all...

Categories AP Watch/China/Human Rights/Refugees
February 21, 2012

Entertainers Join Effort to “Save My Friend,” South Korean Lawmaker Launches Hunger Strike

Across the street from the Chinese Embassy in Seoul today was a busy place.  At 2 p.m. South Korean National Assemblywoman Park Sun Young of the Liberty Forward Party launched a hunger strike (I took the photo above around 5:40 p.m.). In a statement on Tuesday, Park said she plans to launch an “indefinite” hunger strike in front of the Chinese embassy in Seoul to protest the forced repatriation of North Korean defectors by China. “At this very moment, China...

Categories Activism/China/Human Rights/Refugees
February 19, 2012

North Korean Refugees in China in Grave Danger of Repatriation

Update 2 (2/20): In addition to the letter to the Chinese government in the original post below that you can email, fax, or mail, there’s an online petition to the UNHCR and the UN Special Rapporteur that you can sign that’s rapidly collected almost 25,000 signatures. I also just read a related email sent on behalf of several groups saying that a) they’re on Twitter @savemyfriend (in Korean and English) and Facebook and b) are gathering across from the Chinese...

Categories Activism/China/Human Rights/Refugees
February 15, 2012

Calling Bob King

I haven’t seen any news coverage about Korean-Americans protesting against Xi Jinping over China’s policy of sending North Korean refugees to gulags and firing squads.  China has never been known for its great sensitivity to public opinion, of course, so I also have to wonder if Vice President Biden’s “frank discussions” with Xi, during the latter’s visit, included any mention of a large group of North Korean refugees — various reports number them at 21, 29, or 33 souls —...

Categories China/Diplomacy/Human Rights
January 30, 2012

North Korea shipped chemical reagents to Syria, possibly via China

This is a little old now, but I haven’t seen anyone else talking about it, so I will. The U.N. has launched an investigation into an attempted shipment of chemical weapons reagents and protective suits to Syria, a close ally of Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah, and whose government gave safe passage to recruits on their way to Iraq to join Al Qaeda forces there. In November 2009, Greek authorities seized a container from a Liberia-registered freighter as it headed toward...

Categories Axis of Evil/China/Proliferation/Taiwan/WMD
November 25, 2011

Darusman Disappoints (Me, Mostly)

Maruzki Darusman gave a press conference this morning to convey the results of his six-day trip to South Korea. The contents of my report on the event were published by Daily NK  at the time, and are also republished below; Maruzki Darusman, the UN’s special rapporteur on North Korean human rights issues, believes there has been no improvement since he took on the role in 2010, and has once again urged Pyongyang to take action to remedy its multitude of...

Categories "United" Nations/Abductions/China