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Category: Appeasement

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?
August 21, 2006

Kaesong Update

[Correction: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. A reader (thanks!) notes that Ms. Schwab is the U.S. Trade Representative. As it happens, the USTR has been independent from the State Department since 1962! My apologies to the State Department for the unintended defamation.] This may be the most unequivocal thing I’ve ever heard anyone in our State Department say, ever. And it pertains to including (North Korean) Kaesong products in a possible FTA with South...

Categories Appeasement/NK Economics/U.S. & Korea/Washington Views
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
July 28, 2006

Journalistic Absurdity of the Day

Yonhap News gives us this head-scratcher in the course of reporting on North Korea’s new demand for its missile launches not to affect the Kaesong Industrial Complex: Nevertheless, the joint industrial complex has been a burden for the South Korean government as there are concerns that a portion of the wages paid to North Korean workers there could be used to develop missiles. (emphasis mine) I’m in awe. Those people labor long hours in sweatshops for a pittance and still...

Categories Appeasement/Famine & Food Aid/Human Rights/Human Trafficking/Humor/Satire/NK Economics/Uncategorized/WMD
July 27, 2006

Now What? Part 4: Someone Didn’t Get the Memo

[Several very interesting updates here; scroll down.] Recently, it has often seemed that different parts of South Korea have been applying different policies to the same issue. Take South Korea’s response to the new U.N. Security Council Resolution 1695, which requires countries and companies to exercise “vigilance” in making sure they don’t supply North Korea with the components or funds to build more missiles. UniFiction Minister Lee Jong-Seok has opted for a “don’t ask, don’t tell” interpretation of that resolution,...

Categories Appeasement/NK Economics/U.S. & Korea/WMD
July 26, 2006

Roh’s Former Foreign Minister Attacks His Policies

Yoon Young-Kwan isn’t the only former member of his administration attacking him today, but these two criticisms seem particularly spot-on: He fumed at North Korea, calling Pyongyang “high-handed” in its attitude while it accepts handouts from Seoul. “Economic cooperation,” he added, “should instead help a market economy develop in North Korea.” He continued, “Emotional nationalism appears to rule our society at the moment, because an outdated resistance spirit and passive world view are rampant. Diplomacy is something you do with...

Categories Appeasement/Korean Politics
July 25, 2006

Let Them Make Won!

Update: Gee, how curious. Police recovered a briefcase containing a hoard of probably forged United States Treasury bonds worth $500 million during the investigation of a local theft, Seoul’s Gwanak Police Station announced. Police said they are looking into the possible involvement of international crime networks. ===================================== With Seoul questioning why the United States is making such a big deal out of North Korea’s counterfeiting of its currency and saying it “will take no further steps” against it, the Chosun...

Categories Appeasement/Counterfeiting/U.S. & Korea
July 22, 2006

Now What? Part 2

Right after North Korea launched its round of missiles, I outlined a series of options, mostly financial, that the U.S. and other countries could take in response. Two weeks later, several aspects of that forecast are holding up well. What looked at first like another U.N. farce, then a modestly successful sanctions effort (by U.N. standards, anyway), now looks to be an important and hard-won component of a coordinated effort to tighten the squeeze on the regime-sustaining half of North...

Categories Appeasement/Counterfeiting/NK Economics/U.S. & Korea/WMD
July 21, 2006

‘Truly Evil’

Not starving millions of your own people to build missiles for attacking cities in other nations, but the idea that one of those nations might try to protect its citizens from them. There’s only one way I can make that statement remotely comprehensible — by recalling that Roh won’t protect his own citizens. Just as a reminder, we have 30,000 troops in Roh’s country, with a resulting defense cost savings of $60 billion a year. I wonder how much of...

Categories Appeasement/Japan/Japan & Korea/U.S. & Korea/WMD
July 19, 2006

Text of U.N. Security Council Resolution, Statements by Ambassadors

Being a practiced skeptic of South Korean UniFiction Minister Lee Jong-Seok, I had to fact-check his narrow interpretation of U.N.S.C. 1695, that it “does not prescribe economic sanctions” and “should not adversely affect the on-going inter-Korean reconciliation projects, such as the Kaesong Industrial Park and tours to the North’s Mt. Kumgang.” Here, in relevant part, is what 1695 says: Requires all Member States, in accordance with their national legal authorities and legislation and consistent with international law, to exercise vigilance...

Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/NK Economics/WMD
July 17, 2006

The Death of an Aliance, Part 43: Kim Won-Ung, Nutcase

The problem with identifying the most unhinged politician in South Korea’s ruling Uri party is a lot like trying to identify France’s most offensive armpit: at a certain point, extremity renders empirical comparison pointless. Still, I’m not sure anyone in the Uri party has built a more solid record than ex-GNP’er Kim Won-Ung, the only South Korean parliamentarian to have earned two of his very own “DOA” posts. His latest oral discharge is a ferocious denial that North Korea’s short-range...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/WMD/WTF?
July 13, 2006

The Sunshine Policy Is Dead

I guess the whole protection racket thing was the last straw. Now they’ve even managed to rile South Korea’s UniFiction Minister, Lee Jong-Seok. Efforts to bring North Korea back to disarmament talks were in tatters on Thursday as Pyongyang stormed out of a meeting with the South and a senior U.S. diplomat left the region after a week of shuttle diplomacy. …. “The South side will pay a price before the nation for causing the collapse of the ministerial talks...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Unintended Humor/WTF?
July 12, 2006

An Offer They Can’t Refuse

A few days ago, I offered a possible explanation for why North Korea launched seven missiles, despite the likely result that it would ultimately bring down an adverse response from the U.S., Japan, and other nations. According to my “Barrel of a Gun” Theory ©, North Korea launched those missiles to save face, to disguise an impending supplication as extortion for its domestic audience. And sure enough, North Korea is now demanding “protection” aid: North Korea’s Senior Cabinet Counselor Kwon...

Categories Appeasement/North Korea/Unintended Humor/WMD/WTF?
July 9, 2006

Or Else, What?

Update: Or else, we’ll give you a time-out! Even a very angry letter seems too much for the “United” Nations, an institution whose very name moves it into laughingstock territory these days. South Korea nearly managed to say nothing for a whole week, but then broke its silence long enough to play the role of dutiful North Korean enabler and Chinese lap-dog, opposing any binding sanctions. Americans are entitled to wonder why their soldiers are in harm’s way to protect...

Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/China & Korea/Diplomacy/Japan & Korea/U.S. & Korea