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June 20, 2006

The End of Sunshine?

[Update 6/20: As predicted, the North Koreans aren’t taking this well.] “We have the right to speak.” — North Korean government official, talking about South Korean politics Has international pressure has finally forced South Korea to abandon years of official apathy about the phobocracy that is North Korea? Finally, South Korea declares, it will ask the North to treat the lives of its people with a modicum of respect.

Categories Activism/Europe/Human Rights/Japan/Japan & Korea/Korean Politics/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/Uncategorized
May 17, 2006

The UniFiction Church Choir

Progress at Last! The last seven years of the Sunshine policy have finally secured a legacy Roh can campaign on. Goodbye “sea of fire,” hello, “deluge of fire!” I’d like to see those neocon skeptics deny that “deluge” beats “sea” any day of the week! This from the lovable North Korean site “Within Our Race” (a rough translation). ================ Who Stopped My Peace Train? My money is on this not being the last obstacle that bars the path of Kim...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/Blogs & Blogging/China/China & Korea/Diplomacy/Europe/Human Rights/Humor/Satire/Japan/Japan & Korea/Korean Education/Korean Law/Korean Politics/Korean Society/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/Unintended Humor/WTF?
May 16, 2006

Korea Diary, 17 May 06

If you need an even better illustration of the idiocy of the Tokdo distraction, read this moving story about the families of two hostages, one Japanese and one South Korean, who married during their captivity in North Korea. Yokota expressed gratitude that his son-in-law was a South Korean. “I am so lucky to have a South Korean son-in-law, not a North Korean. I am so happy that I can hope that our families may meet one another again. He said...

Categories Abductions/Activism/An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Drugs & N Korea/Europe/Famine & Food Aid/Human Rights/Inside NK/Islam/Japan/Japan & Korea/Korean Politics/News Links/NK Economics/Proliferation/Refugees/Terrorism/Iraq/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/Uncategorized/WMD
May 16, 2006

Choi Yung Hun Still Sits in a Chinese Prison

Congratulations, to those of you whose letters, calls, and other hard work led to the admission of the first six North Korean refugees into the United States. I hereby declare an end to the congratulation period (I can do that, right?). Life Funds for North Korean Refugees (which we must have forogotten to blogroll) gives us fresh reasons to write your local ChiCom Embassy (chinaembassy_us@fmprc.gov.cn; or go here) and tell them why you won’t be attending the 2008 Olympics.

Categories "United" Nations/Activism/China/China & Korea/Human Rights/Japan & Korea/Refugees
May 15, 2006

Growing U.S.-Japanese Fracas Over Yasukuni Visits

Yesterday, I added the following “Link of Interest:” Rep. Henry Hyde, Chairman of the House International Relations Committee, has a message for President Junichiro Koizumi. Hyde, a veteran of the Pacific Theater of World War II and no fan of Japan’s revisionist view of history, suggests that Koizumi won’t be invited to address the House during his upcoming state visit if he intends to visit the Yasukuni Shrine this summer. . . . I swear there must be a clock...

Categories Diplomacy/History/Japan/Japan & Korea/Uncategorized/Washington Views
May 13, 2006

Japanese Coast Guard Searches N. Korean Drug Ship

They also arrested two people believed to have been part of the smuggling operation. The men are accused of helping smuggle several hundred kilograms of amphetamines from North Korea to Japan, Jiji Press and public broadcaster NHK said. Tokyo police arrested Woo Si-Yun, an unemployed 59-year-old South Korean living in Japan, and alleged Japanese gangster Katsuhiko Miyata, 58, the news organizations said. Woo is believed to be the owner of a mobile phone recovered from a North Korean spy ship...

Categories Drugs & N Korea/Japan & Korea/U.S. Law
May 5, 2006

Had Enough Tokdo Yet?

Time Asia does a spot-on summary, if you can bear it. According to a report by Peter Beck, the Northeast Asia project director for the International Crisis Group, “One would be hard pressed to find a single Korean over the age of five willing to admit that control of Dokdo does not matter.” By contrast, says Hideshi Takesada, a professor of Korean politics at Japan’s National Institute for Defense Studies, “most people in Japan have no knowledge of the issue,”...

Categories Japan & Korea/Korean Politics/Unintended Humor/WTF?
April 28, 2006

N. Korea Freedom Week Updates

First, please join us on the West side of the U.S. Capitol today, starting at 11:30. The rally will last well into the afternoon, with plenty of opportunities to frighten powerful and cynical people throughout the day. Some of us may even make a special appearance at the South Korean Embassy later this afternoon. At 6 PM, Suzanne Scholte of the North Korean Freedom Coalition will lead a rally at the Chinese Embassy that will become an all-night prayer vigil....

Categories Abductions/Activism/Appeasement/China & Korea/Defectors/Democracy/Human Rights/Japan/Japan & Korea/Korean History/North Korea/Refugees/Resistance/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized/Washington Views
April 20, 2006

Earth to Korea: Nobody Cares About Tokdo. You’re Making Total Asses of Yourselves Over Nothing.

In the face of Pyongyang’s furious protest, the Seoul government indicated it would return to “quiet diplomacy” on North Korean refugees . . . . — UPI, Aug. 17, 2004 On the human rights issue in North Korea, [Prime Minister Han Myeong-Sook] stated that “the government deals with improving the North Korean human rights record and maintaining peace on the Korean peninsula with actions rather than words,” and went on to say that “providing humanitarian aid to the North is...

Categories Japan & Korea
April 10, 2006

Charles Jenkins in OhMyNews

This one is a must-read. The portrait you get is of a man broken in every way possible, yet almost inexplicably, alive. I’ll give you two quotes and let you read the rest yourself: He believes there are more Americans in the country. “I know they’re there but can’t prove it. They’re left from the Korean and Vietnam wars. There is a place there where they got Americans farming.” . . . . Jenkins secretly indulged his love of American...

Categories Abductions/Famine & Food Aid/Inside NK/Japan/Japan & Korea/U.S. Military/Uncategorized
April 7, 2006

Some People Will Believe Anything

The question you really have to ask yourself on reading tripe like this is whether a mature, self-assured democracy would plot to disturb international peace and commerce for a windswept and essentially uninhabited pile of guano. I’ll go out on a long limb here and say Japan and the United States wouldn’t, because unlike South Korea, they are mature and self-assured democracies. You can’t keep a stable alliance with a nation where urban legend passes for public discourse, leading us...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Japan & Korea/Korean Society/Media Criticism/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized
April 6, 2006

How South Korea Sacrificed Its Abducted Citizens

In 1979, a mob of wild-eyed whooping loonies seized 52 Americans and held them as hostages for 444 days. The most testosterone-deficient U.S. president in living memory made securing their freedom his all-consuming priority in office, as the news media led with the story every night for over a year. He froze Iranian assets and even launched a disastrous military mission to free them. His failure to do so destroyed his presidency. In September 2002, Kim Jong Il admitted that...

Categories Abductions/Appeasement/Japan/Japan & Korea
April 5, 2006

Who Is Ma Young-Ae, and What Does She Know?

[Updated 6 Apr 06; scroll down] Via The Flying Yangban, it looks like the U.S. may be on the verge of accepting its first North Korean refugee. Like the Yangban, I’m happy about it. Unlike the Yangban, I don’t see this as necessarily precedent-setting for the broader issue of accepting refugees fleeing persecution in North Korea. Reason: this refugee is also fleeing persecution in South Korea. No, that wasn’t a typo: Ma came to South Korea in 2000. In April...

Categories Abductions/An Alliance?/Appeasement/Censorship/Counterfeiting/Defectors/Human Rights/Japan/Japan & Korea/Korean Law/North Korea/Refugees/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized/Washington Views
April 3, 2006

J Diplomat Kills Himself Over PRC Extortion Attempt

What’s interesting to me about this Japan Times story is that the authorities of both countries appear to have had little interest in keeping matters from getting public and nasty. Espionage is a fact of international relations, but it only tends to become a matter of public acrimony in the presence of inter-governmental hostility. Update: The Yomiuri Shimbun reports that Japan has cut off new loans to China “due to strained relations.”

Categories Asia/China/Diplomacy/Geopolitics/Japan
March 25, 2006

Japanese Authorities Connect South Koreans to Abductions

The police are revealing new details of how Tadaaki Hara was kidnapped to North Korea, and as it turns out, blood is thicker than politics.  At the center of the plot was the North Korean-controlled Chosen Soren, but several of those involved were or are connected to South Korea: A North Korean agent wanted for the 1980 abduction of Tadaaki Hara received financial and other assistance necessary to conduct the abduction from at least 16 pro-Pyongyang ethnic Koreans living in...

Categories Abductions/Japan/Japan & Korea