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Category: Diplomacy

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 29, 2006

Ban Ki-Moon: He’s Already Screwing Up the U.N.!

If it’s still possible, that is.  Add corruption to the list of U.N.’s fatal  flaws and  despotic  tendencies,  of which Ban Ki Moon is already an accomplished practitioner. The Times said Friday the Korean government “has pledged millions of dollars in aid and offered other incentives to members of the United Nations Security Council to secure its candidate as the next UN secretary-general. Under the sardonic headline, “Millions of dollars and a piano may put Korean in UN’s top job”...

Categories "United" Nations/Uncategorized
September 28, 2006

Maybe He Needed Instructions.

President Roh Moo-hyun said Thursday that South Korea had sounded Pyongyang out on the joint comprehensive approach to the stalled six-party talks prior to his recent summit with U.S. President George W. Bush in Washington. Really, I don’t quibble with him floating his trial balloon to the North Koreans.  It’s the sequence of it that speaks volumes.  While we’re dumping on the South Korean government, don’t miss another fairly shocking example that Jeffery turned up: In the early stage of...

Categories Diplomacy/U.S. & Korea
September 28, 2006

What, Me Wimpy?

“Sometimes I may look like a weak, soft leadership,” Ban said in an interview Wednesday with The Associated Press. “You may look at me as a soft person, but I have inner strength. This is what normally people from the outside world would have some difficulty in seeing — people from Asia particularly, when we regard humility, a humbleness, as a very important virtue.” Ban spoke to reporters after being reached at a  Manhattan salon, where he was receiving a...

Categories "United" Nations/An Alliance?/U.S. & Korea
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

The Case for Blocking Ban Ki-Moon

The United Nations is facing new denunciations for being feckless, ineffective, and corrupt. The sun also rose, obituaries were published, children went off to school, and leaves in the northern latitudes began to change color. There was something different about the latest criticism, however: despite its general similarity of content, it came from The Guardian, the flagship of the British left, and The Hudson Institute, virtually the Jesuit order of Washington neoconservatism. That’s a stunning convergence from two groups with...

Categories "United" Nations/Human Rights
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 16, 2006

The Death of an Alliance, Part 51

First, TKL is privileged to print this exclusive photo of the Bush-Roh luncheon. The pomp and pageantry rolled out for America’s greatest ally since the Marquis de Lafayette does not end there. Roh and the poor ROK Ambassador, Lee Tae-Shik, adjourned to Blair House to meet with a real who’s-who of has-beens. Extra props to whoever invited Richard Armitage, who must be the least popular man in this city this week. Also present: Madeleine Albright, Don Oberdorfer, Donald Gregg, Thomas...

Categories An Alliance?/Diplomacy/U.S. & Korea/Washington Views
September 14, 2006

Kim Dae Jung: Neocons Made Up N. Korean Nuke Crisis

[Updated for your pleasure, and here’s one back at the Marmot, who has much more.] It’s a ruthless totalitarian regime with a history of selling WMD’s to terrorist backers, and its state ideology revels in violence against America. And if the fact that they have a few nukes worries you, it’s obviously all in your head, says ex-South Korean Prez and Nobel prize winner Kim Dae Jung: “How North Korea will do with its missiles and nuclear weapons… Those will...

Categories Anti-Americanism/Diplomacy/WMD/WTF?
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