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Category: Appeasement

October 15, 2006

So Much for the Death of Sunshine

No, I don’t think any objective observer can really claim that Sunshine bears any reasonable chance of success, and I think its rejection by Korean voters can only be more overwhelming than it was before the test. But rigor mortis has a strong grip on Kim Dae Jung, Roh, and company, meaning that God-only-knows-what. It’s really difficult to put much stock in what Korean politicians are saying about it, other than (1) they’re confused and inconsistent, and (2) they’re desperate...

Categories Appeasement/Korean Politics
October 13, 2006

The Kaesong ‘Collision Course’

Whatever the U.N. is  about to do about North Korea  won’t matter to South Korea’s government:  South Korea and the U.S. look set for a clash over the inter-Korean Kaesong Industrial Complex and tourism to Mt. Kumgang in the North. President Roh Moo-hyun and the government have stressed the importance of joining hands with the international community in addressing Pyongyang’s nuclear test claim, but they add the industrial park in the North and the package tours have nothing to do...

Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/WMD
October 11, 2006

The Sunshine Policy Is Dead, Part 3

Like the captain of a sinking ship herding rats back into the hold, Kim Dae Jung is desperately trying to preserve a policy that was his dubious legacy.  Without Sunshine, there is only bribery and a tarnished hunk of metal.  Kim, predictably, apportions blame equally between North Korea and the United States.  Honestly, there is just no pleasing some people.  We’ve offered the North Koreans far too much for far too long.  If DJ really thinks the North Koreans have...

Categories An Alliance?/Appeasement/Counterfeiting/Money Laundering/U.S. & Korea/WMD
October 1, 2006

South Korean Companies Accused of Trying to Sell Missile-Making Equipment to the North

It’s a good illustration of why South Korea needs to exercise “vigilance” in its trade with the North: Two South Korean companies made failed attempts to export military-purpose materials to North Korea last year, an opposition lawmaker claimed Sunday. Citing data from the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy (MOCIE), Rep. Kim Gi-hyeon of the Grand National Party said a South Korean company signed a contract in August with a North Korean firm for the sale of an air-pressing machine...

Categories Appeasement
September 30, 2006

Guild of Liars, Part 2: North Korean Refugees Expose the Lies of the National Lawyers’ Guild

[Updated]   Kudos to the Bar Assocation for doing what the cowardly and  politicized National  Human Rights Commission won’t. The report included testimony similar to that in papers issued by Amnesty International and other rights groups, describing forced abortions and infanticide in North Korea’s political prisons. The bar association report was the first of its kind, although the group issues annual reports on human rights in the South. It was issued against a backdrop of criticism by rights activists of...

Categories Appeasement/Human Rights/Korean Law
September 22, 2006

The Sunshine Policy Is Dead, Part 2

South Korea has pretty much trashed its relations with the United States and Japan, and  its netizens are waging two boundary disputes  with the Chinese.  It’s a good thing reunification is just around the corner: South Koreans are more and more disenchanted with  North Korea, with a growing number losing enthusiasm for unification and believing their Stalinist neighbor could start a war, a survey released on Friday said. The poll by the daily JoongAng Ilbo was taken nearly two months...

Categories Appeasement/Korean Politics
September 22, 2006

Kim Jong Il Unplugged, Part 11: Eyes on Seoul

Green eyeshades are turning toward Seoul, Kaesong, and Kumgang.  If you think things were bad before, this is where U.S.-Korea relations will be severely tested.  The U.S. Treasury Department isn’t going to put up with Seoul acting as Kim Jong Il’s financier for long, and  with the  likely exceptions of some shady  Russian banks  and whatever China is secretly providing at the state-to-state level, South Korea is Kim Jong Il’s last cash cow. Kumgang That poll yesterday — the one...

Categories Appeasement/Money Laundering/NK Economics/U.S. & Korea
September 8, 2006

The Seven Billion Dollar Man

[Update: The actual figure turns out to be over $7 billion, if you include all aid since 1995 and add in Kim Dae Jung’s $500M bribes. It still excludes money from South Korean corporations, and of course, aid from the U.N. or other countries. South Korea now provides 46% of North Korea’s support. h/t The Nomad.] Let’s briefly review where we’ve been with North Korea over the last year — missile tests, nuclear scares, crude insults, food aid stolen from...

Categories Appeasement/Money Laundering
September 8, 2006

The Death of an Alliance, Part 50: Alternative Realities and Real Alternatives

I suppose everyone is entitled a theory on why Kim Jong Il decided to launch a round of missiles on July 4th, thereby drawing the wrong kind of attention from the U.N. Security Council, Japan, China, and the U.S. Treasury Department. This blog has been lukewarm on the conventional “extortion” theory, and has recently hosted discussions of the Strategic Disengagement Theory, the “Barrel of a Gun” Theory, The Loyalty Test Theory, and most recently, the Robert Kaplan Theory. All of...

Categories An Alliance?/Appeasement/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/WMD
September 5, 2006

Busted: S. Korean Monitoring of Food Aid Exposed as a Sham

[Updates: English version here, and a small correction below.] “At least since 2000 when we began providing assistance to the North, no one there has been starving to death.” ““ UniFiction Minister Lee Jong-Seok, May 2, 2006 You may recall that just over a year ago, Marcus Noland and Stephen Haggard provoked controversy when they published a report called “Hunger and Human Rights.” In that report, the authors concluded that up to half of food aid deliveries to North Korea...

Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/Famine & Food Aid/Human Rights/Resistance
September 5, 2006

Kim Jong Il Unplugged, Part 8

Nigel Cowie, North Korea’s most “legitimate” banker, is selling out, and this time, that’s not just a moral judgment. Richardson links this piece, written by none other than Bradley K. Martin, indicating that he’s selling his Daedong Credit Bank to the British-based Koryo Group, but will stay on to help manage the bank. As for the issue of Daedong’s much-proclaimed legitimacy, Martin adds what strikes me as a highly salient fact: The minority owner of Daedong Credit is Korea Daesong...

Categories Appeasement/Counterfeiting/Drugs & N Korea/Money Laundering/NK Economics/WMD
September 3, 2006

Breaking the Blockade

[Update: Andrei Lankov has a must-read piece on radio broadcasting in the Asia Times Online.] Where there is demand, there will be a supply, and the trickle of alternative information to North Korea, though small, shows signs of persistence and of having a receptive market. In addition to Radio Free NK and Open Radio for North Korea, there is now a Japan-based broadcaster, Shiokaze. The DailyNK interviews its director. Although their original focus is on sending messages to Japanese abductees,...

Categories Abductions/Activism/Appeasement/Censorship/Democracy/Japan & Korea/Reconstruction/Refugees/Resistance/Uncategorized
August 23, 2006

Kim Jong Il Unplugged, Part 5

Stuart Levey’s visit to Asia last month is paying off. Yet another nation is cutting off Kim Jong Il’s finances. Vietnamese banks have already closed down North Korean accounts over the past few weeks, most likely forcing Pyongyang to move its money to its last remaining haven, Russia, said Peter Beck, head of the International Crisis Group’s Seoul office, on Tuesday. Beck said Nigel Cowie, general manager of North Korea’s Daedong Credit Bank in Pyongyang, e-mailed him last week and...

Categories Appeasement/Counterfeiting/Drugs & N Korea/NK Economics
August 21, 2006

Ministry of Perfect Timing

Seoul Condoles [?] N.Korea on Death of Spymaster— Chosun Ilbo, August 21, 2006 Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok on Monday expressed his condolences to his North Korean counterpart Kwon Ho-ung on the death of Rim Dong-ok, the vice chairman of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland[….] The North Korea committee happens to have another job in planning anti-South Korean operations like dispatching spies, in cooperation with the 35th office of the Workers’ Party. Chameleon N.Korean Spy Nabbed in...

Categories Appeasement/The Fifth Column/WTF?