Category: Diplomacy

April 24, 2007

Kaesong, Kim Jong Il, and Killing the Goose

Update: South Korea may be reconsidering the expansion plans after all.The Kaesong Slave Labor Park may want to reconsider its expansion plans in light of the Daily NK’s new breakdown casting doubt on just how successful the existing venture really is. Of 23 businesses that were supposed to have started operations at Kaesong since 2005, 4 have abandoned their space reservations; 1 or 2 more are considering abandoning their reservations; 4 have placed their space reservations on hold; 6 or...

Categories Appeasement/Human Trafficking

April 24, 2007

Anju Links for 24 April 2007: China and South Korea Claim Their Largesse Has Limits, Another Fresh-Faced Septuagenarian Rises in Pyongyang, and Why the Defunding Debate Should Focus on the U.N., Not Our Troops

*   North Korea is now eleven days past the April 13th deadline by which  it agreed to shut down and seal the Yongbyon reactor, make a meaningful showing at another session of six-party talks,  begin discussions about the full extent of its nuclear programs, and invite U.N. inspectors back in.  As of today, it has failed to fulfill any of those conditions.  I  just  wanted to point that out in case Chris Hill is reading or Kim Jong  Bill...

Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/China/China & Korea/Human Rights/Human Trafficking/Kremlinology/NK Economics

April 23, 2007

Anju Links for 23 April 2007

*   The Ides of April.   I’ve previously blogged about the replacement of Premier  Pak Pong Ju with Kim Yong Il.  Now, we learn that Kim Kyok-Sik is taking over as the new “military first,” to borrow a tired  expression,  which technically makes him second only to Korigula himself (ht: Richardson).  Two other old party hacks have gone off to that Eternal Party Congress chaired by Mephistopheles himself, or soon will:  Foreign Minister  Paek Nam-Sun  and Marshall Cho Myong-Rok.  All...

Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/Diplomacy/Drugs & N Korea/Korean Society/Kremlinology/Money Laundering/Six-Party Talks/Southeast Asia/Uncategorized/WMD

April 19, 2007

Anju Links for 19 April 2007

*   Cho Myong Rok, who is probably the second or third-most important North Korean official, is reported to be dying.  Cho is the one Kim Jong Il designated to visit Washington and meet with President Clinton years ago.  Doctors expect the 79-year-old vice marshal to live another month or two, as he already had one of his kidneys removed 10 years ago, and has gone through treatment for cancer in his intestines, the organization said.  Here’s a brief Global...

Categories "United" Nations/Korean Society/Kremlinology/WMD

April 18, 2007

Is North Korea Shutting Down Yongbyon After All?

Update:   Or maybe just wishful South Korean thinking? Contrary to published reports, the United States has seen no signs that North Korea has begun to shut down its Yongbyon nuclear facility as called for in a February 13 six-country agreement, a senior U.S, official said on Tuesday. News reports in South Korean media are “just not accurate … We have seen no actions on the North Koreans’ part that at this point leads us to believe they are fulfilling...

Categories Six-Party Talks/WMD

April 16, 2007

Anju Links for 16 April 2007

*  My latest K-blog discovery is “Six Happy Feet,” a superb photoblog with a great  name.  You’ll want to put this one on your blogrolls.  It’s hard to read  it without concluding that this is just a genuinely nice family. *   A Nation’s Conscience.   Some South Koreans are demanding freedom for those North Korean refugees in Laos — the ones the South Korean government refused to help.  *   Heal Thyself, Part 1.   I can understand why...

Categories Activism/Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/Blogs & Blogging/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/WMD

April 15, 2007

Anju Links for 15 April 2007

*    We’ve Lost the True Meaning of Kim Il Sung’s Birthday.   It’s another OFK exclusive — I have the first video of North Korea’s Kim Il Sung Day parade.  In North Korea, where devotion comes from the barrel of a gun, the object of this  devotion  is now a side of preserved meat; thus,  I urge everyone to  pay their respects  with  a feast  appropriate for the occasion.  If only the people of North Korea were fortunate enough...

Categories Abductions/Anju Links/Appeasement/Korean War/Refugees

April 14, 2007

Agreed Framework 2.0: A Day 60 Scorecard

[Update: I decided to append various newsworthy or interesting reactions to the passage of this deadline at the end of this post; please scroll to the bottom to read. For new readers, the man on the right is Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, who expended years of connivance on getting us to make this deal, and who personally negotiated its amorphous terms. Hill has staked his reputation on the idea that North Korea is capable of abiding by the...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/WMD

April 13, 2007

‘Kim Jong Bill’ Richardson and Camp 22

[Update:   The dissenting comments have been erased again.  Gov. Richardson’s fans want to create a cult of adulation in which all  dissent is stifled and concentration camps are never mentioned.   All of this is somehow  familiar to a North Korea-watcher.] [Update 2:   Help us keep “Kim Jong Bill” on Wikipedia until he asks Kim Jong Il to close down Camp 22.  I’ve put the text and code at the bottom of the post, below the line.  Everyone is...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/U.S. & Korea/WMD

April 12, 2007

Anju Links for 12 April 2007

*   Shocking.   North Korea wants another 30 days to shut down Yongbyon, now that the deadline is half a week away.  Most media accounts are focusing on North Korea’s agreement to take back U.N. inspectors, though it’s not clear if they’ll have access to more than this one site, and we’ve certainly learned that the acceptance of U.N. inspectors is a highly reversible development.  The more time passes, the more this looks like something less than the first...

Categories Diplomacy/WMD

April 12, 2007

Law Enforcement Will Be Compromised

Correction: I subsequently found the transcript for the February 27, 2007 hearing, and Chris Hill did not say, quote, “Law enforcement will not be compromised.” On reading the full quote, you’ll probably agree that Hill found another way of saying the same thing; however, I regret the error, which was no doubt due to me scribbling notes of the hearing by hand, and transposing Rep. Royce’s question with Hill’s answer. Here’s the correct quote from Hill: Ambassador HILL. Mr. Congressman,...

Categories Appeasement/China & Korea/Counterfeiting/Money Laundering

April 11, 2007

Anju Links for 11 April 2007

*   Are You Effing Kidding Me?   The Bush administration, reversing a six-year-old North Korea policy based on deep mistrust, said it will now rely on Pyongyang’s “good faith” to ensure that funds released yesterday from a Macao bank are not misused…. Mr. McCormack said the North Koreans had promised “to spend the money for the betterment of the North Korean people,” and not for the personal benefit of its officials. [Wash Times] Stupidity with malice aforethought is its...

Categories Activism/Anju Links/Appeasement/Kremlinology/Terrorism/Iraq/U.S. Politics

April 9, 2007

Peace in Our Time: Bracing for a Missed Deadline, and the ‘Good’ Unilateralism

If you wonder just how fundamental our policy shift on North Korea has been — fundamentally bad, that is — just look at the fact that Bill Richardson’s amateur diplomacy toward Kim Jong Il is no longer being ignored by the White House  [AP, Foster Klug].  Six months ago, a Bill Richardson visit to his friends in Pyongyang would have followed some White House statements that Richardson was acting  on his own as a private citizen.  Today, as President Clinton...

Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/Diplomacy/WMD

April 8, 2007

John Bolton on Agreed Framework 2.0

“I think this deal will inevitably fail,” Bolton said. “That day cannot come too soon in my view.”  [CBS] That was John Bolton speaking at the American Enterprise Institute on Thursday (I was home sick).   If you were to ask me the reasons why I think AF 2.0 is a flat-out capitulation —  one that will make our world more dangerous,  hurt our friends, and reward our enemies before it fails — all I have to do is look who...

Categories Appeasement/U.S. Politics

April 8, 2007

N. Korea gets a U.S. green light to sell arms, and six months after its unanimous passage, UNSCR 1718 is a dead letter

That resolution may have been the only potentially effective U.N. action in my living memory, and the hand that held the dagger belonged to none other than our own State Department.  The United States ignored an apparent violation of the international sanctions against North Korea by turning a blind eye to an arms shipment that Pyongyang sent to Ethiopia earlier this year, according to a story in Sunday’s edition of The New York Times. North Korea has been subject to...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Terrorism (NK)/Washington Views/WMD

March 28, 2007

A novel definition for ‘denuclearization;’ and where to keep a horse (from being eaten) in N. Korea

According to this Chosun Ilbo report, North Korea recently floated a novel interpretation of “denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” under which it could, you know, keep its nuclear weapons.  I wonder what they expected: The assistant secretary of state made it clear that Washington’s goal is complete denuclearization saying, “The U.S. will not form any kind of ties with a nuclear-armed North Korea. He stipulated that “the case of India (which signed a nuclear pact despite possessing nuclear programs) will...

Categories Human Rights/Kim Jong Il/Money Laundering/Proliferation/Six-Party Talks/WMD

March 27, 2007

Colin McAskill Threatens to Sue Over Release of Funds to DPRK Gov’t

McAskill, the man who sells Kim Jong Il’s gold and  who recently bought  the  bank through which most of North Korea’s European investment is channeled, has heretofore been  a strident and articulate advocate of releasing the  $25 million  frozen in BDA.  Overnight, he has become the main obstacle: In two letters sent to the Monetary Authority of Macao, [Daedong Credit Bank] has said that it will take legal action if any of its frozen funds are moved in accordance with...

Categories Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Money Laundering/NK Economics/Six-Party Talks/WTF?

March 27, 2007

As N. Korea Reverts to Form, Hill Warns Kim Jong Il

Via Richardson: The U.S. envoy to the North Korea nuclear talks said Monday that Pyongyang needs to meet international standards, especially in human rights, in order to have relations with Washington. “It’s a price of admission to the international community,” Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said.  [Yonhap] Does this encourage me?  I’m not sure.  It’s not a bad thing that Chris Hill is tipping his hat  comb-over in this direction, although “international standards, especially in human rights” are a...

Categories Diplomacy/Money Laundering/WMD