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Category: Diplomacy

August 23, 2006

An Open Letter to Ambassador Lee Tae-Shik on the 169 Refugees Held in Thailand

[Update: Foreign Minister Ban Ki Moon is promising to take “appropriate measures,” which is encouraging in a vague sort of way. Foreign diplomats also sound optimistic. I infer that this was an underground railroad operation, and get the distinct idea that it was betrayed from within, as I also suspect in the case of a previous operation in Laos. Note also that various reports count as many as 179 refugees, most of them women and kids. Separately, Yonhap reports a...

Categories "United" Nations/Activism/Famine & Food Aid/Human Rights/Refugees
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

Kim Jong Il, Unplugged

“You can get a lot farther with a kind word and a gun than a kind word alone.” — Al Capone In an interview with Radio Free Asia (Korean only), Raphael Perl of the Congressional Research Service suggests exactly what I suspected about polite requests from U.S. Treasury Undersecretary Stuart Levey to crack down on North Korean money laundering — the polite requests are backed by some powerful veiled threats: One option available to the US government, although this is...

Categories Counterfeiting/NK Economics/Six-Party Talks/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

Someone Call Guiness; Ask for the ‘Most Chutzpah’ Desk

[Update: Perfectly on cue, North Korea accuses Israel of “barbaric genocide.” There are times I think they read this blog.] “[This] is a reckless act, an inhumane act unprecedented in the world, and a dire human right violation!” We’re referring to none of the things that have probably crossed your mind by now, but Japan’s decision to deny entry visas to five North Koreans who sought to retrieve the remains of relatives who died in Japan 60+ years ago, and...

Categories "United" Nations/History/Japan & Korea/Unintended Humor
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 24, 2006

Now What? Part 3: Dave, What Are You Doing?

Update: The BOC account played a role in the 2000 summit scandal, according to the Chosun Ilbo. What skill it must take to step in it this hard: SEOUL, July 24 (Yonhap) — North Korea is suspected of having printed fake Chinese currency, which prompted the Bank of China (BOC) to freeze all of its North Korean accounts in an apparent retaliation, a South Korean legislator asserted on Monday. Quoting a number of unidentified U.S. officials, Rep. Park Jin of...

Categories China/China & Korea/Counterfeiting/NK Economics/Six-Party Talks
July 24, 2006

On Again

Update 7/25: Off again. How do you say “stall” in Korean? The North Koreans now say they’re returning to the six-party talks. Let’s hope the Bush Administration doesn’t call off Stuart Levy. I suspect his variety of communication has been much more effective than Nicholas Burns’s. Odd, isn’t it, that all of that alleged Chinese pressure and dearly purchased South Korean influence couldn’t bring them back to the table for so many months? Yet when a U.S. Treasury official flies...

Categories Diplomacy/Drugs & N Korea/Six-Party Talks
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 18, 2006

A Wedge Between China and North Korea?

Update 7/21: Senator John Voinovich, who cried when he previously announced that he couldn’t support John Bolton’s confirmation, now says he would. More. North Korea’s decision to test those missiles is looking more like a miscalculation today than it did two weeks ago. South Korea has halted the delivery of aid (for now), Japan is preparing for a new round of sanctions, the United States may do the same, and the U.N. Security Council unanimously passed a resolution that John...

Categories "United" Nations/China & Korea/Kremlinology/NK Economics/WMD