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Category: North-South

September 21, 2013

Kaesong investors beware: Treasury issues new warning about N. Korea money laundering risk

Precisely what North Koreans do with earnings from Kaesong, I think, is something that we are concerned about.” – David Cohen, Undersecretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Just as Kaesong begins the process of reopening, and as the South Korean government seeks to “internationalize” investment there, the Treasury Department has issued a new warning about money laundering risks emanating from North Korea. The warning echoes longstanding concerns by the global Financial Action Task Force. Every potential investor in...

Categories Money Laundering/North-South/Sanctions/Sunshine
September 16, 2013

ROK Army shoots, kills man attempting to swim to N. Korea

I’ll withhold my criticism until I know a few more facts, but I can’t immediately understand why South Korean troops had to shoot and kill a South Korean man who was swimming the Imjin toward North Korea. This would not be the first South-to-North defection, but I don’t know why one the loss of one more nut or fugitive would be a great loss to the South. If the South doesn’t address the appropriateness of the use of force, it will weaken calls...

Categories Defectors/North-South/ROK Military
September 13, 2013

Kaesong Updates

The North Korean workers who were previously dispersed from Kaesong are being told to prepare to go back to work … provided that the necessary gratuities are paid, of course. Aidan Foster-Carter asks a very sensible question in a commentary at Korea Real Time: “What foreign firm in their (sic) right mind would consider investing in Kaesong?” This Joongang Ilbo report bolsters his skepticism: The ministry in charge of inter-Korean relations said that in order to attract investments from outside Korea to the park, a subcommittee...

Categories Sunshine
September 12, 2013

Can North Korea have both Kaesong and Yongbyon?

Who is the real Park Geun Hye? The uneasy coexistence of two headlines may soon tell us. The first headline tells us that, six months after North Korea withdrew its workers, the Kaesong Industrial Park will soon restart.  The second tells us that North Korea’s reactor at Yongbyon already has. Both of these developments are bad news for those who want to see North Korea disarmed, for reasons I explained here. But if Park is really as tough as some...

Categories North-South/Sunshine/WMD
August 19, 2013

Kaesong deal leaves more questions that answers

“Precisely what North Koreans do with earnings from Kaesong, I think, is something that we are concerned about.” – David Cohen, Undersecretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence I won’t conceal my disappointment that North and South Korea say they’ve reached an agreement to reopen Kaesong.  Doing so now would undermine that international financial pressure that will be necessary to disarm North Korea at a time when it’s showing signs of working, and when that pressure might help us achieve interests...

Categories North-South/Sunshine
March 15, 2013

North Korea’s cash-for-summit demands put 2010 attacks in a new light

WERE THE 2010 ATTACKS North Korea’s way of making good on extortion?  Stephan Haggard, not widely know for his hard-line views, cites an article in the Chosun Ilbo revealing that Kim Jong Il wanted a summit with Lee Myung Bak, but at a price. The sticking point was money. How much? According to the Chosun Ilbo, $500-600 million in rice and fertilizer aid, which had effectively been cut from the first of the year, and perhaps some cash too; that was...

Categories Appeasement/Cheonan Incident/North-South/Sunshine/Terrorism (NK)/Yeonpyeong Attack
January 31, 2013

The Stillbirth of Sunshine Lite

SO PARK GEUN-HYE HASN’T EVEN BEEN INAUGURATED YET, and her plans to engage North Korea — she called them “trustpolitik” — are turning out just as I’d predicted they would, and just how Sung Yoon Lee predicted in the opening paragraphs of this piece — they’re being overcome by North Korea’s own plans: Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, has ordered his top military and party officials to take “substantial and high-profile important state measures” to retaliate against American-led United Nations sanctions on the country, the North’s...

Categories North-South/Sunshine
January 9, 2013

Over at Foreign Policy …

… Professor Sung Yoon Lee and I have a piece up discussing the world’s next, almost-certain-to-be-lost opportunity to respond to North Korea more effectively than having Susan Rice continue to beat her cranium against the Great Wall of China at the Security Council.  It’s a blend of Professor Lee’s prognostications about what the North will do next, and some of the financial constriction ideas I’ve been pushing as one of those Three C’s. I’ll say this about FP — it’s...

Categories Counterfeiting/Missiles/Money Laundering/North-South/Proliferation/Sanctions/WMD
January 3, 2013

Happy New Year, Now Pay Up

Those who read only headlines will believe that Kim Jong Un has declared peace with South Korea. Those who read on, and who know anything of the background to the story, will see that Kim Jong Un’s New Year’s Speech is a demand for Park Geun-Hye to resume massive financial aid and make territorial concessions to the North, in line with what Roh Moo-Hyun agreed in his 2007 going-out-of-business summit. It’s debatable whether the message was really all that conciliatory.  Kim,...

Categories North-South/Sunshine
December 20, 2012

Park, Lee, and Obama all had big plans to “engage” North Korea. North Korea had other plans.

Robert links to some polling data suggesting the pleasantly surprising fact that not only did North Korea’s missile test fail to swing votes toward Moon Jae-in, the ideological successor and former Chief of Staff to arch-appeaser Roh Moo-Hyun, it may have caused more conservative voters to flock to the polls to vote for Park (or against Moon).  If those voters expected Park to govern as a hard-liner, however, they’re projecting. Park didn’t run as a hard-liner in this election; in fact,...

Categories Appeasement/North-South/Sunshine
December 14, 2012

Guest Post: It Pays to Provoke

Prof. Sung Yoon Lee is the Kim Koo-Korea Foundation Assistant Professor of Korean Studies at Tufts University, a regular contributor to The Wall Street Journal and Foreign Affairs, and a good friend of mine.  If you’re wondering how he lowered his standards so far so fast, the answer is that he wrote a comment that outgrew the comments section, and he graciously agreed to let me publish it as a guest post. ——————————————————- North Korea’s long-range ballistic missile on Dec 12,...

Categories Missiles/NK Military/North-South
September 7, 2012

Really? DJ Horked the Whole Sunshine Thing from the Moonies?

Depending on your perspective, this revelation may soften your image of Reverend Moon, or you might be saying to yourself, “yeah, that figures.” Having lived in South Korea during the height of the Sunshine craze and observed it with more pity than anger ever since, the whole thing certainly looked like a cult to me. Moon was an early practitioner of the kind of conciliatory politics that the South Korean government would eventually embrace in its now-abandoned “Sunshine Policy,” which...

Categories Sunshine/WTF?
March 24, 2012

Told you so: Now that the FTA is in effect, South Korea wants to use it to put North Korean-made products on your store shelves

So now that the Free-Trade Agreement between the U.S. and South Korea is officially in effect, the supposedly conservative South Korean government is pulling a bait-and-switch, reviving the demand of its leftist predecessor to include products made by the virtual slave laborers in Kaesong, North Korea in the deal: South Korea is pushing to include the Gaeseong industrial zone in North Korea in its free-trade deals with the U.S. and Europe, a step that would deepen cross- border ties after...

Categories NK Economics/Sunshine
June 3, 2011

Monty Python and the Holy Centrifuges

With relations between North and South Korea still tense and limited, the North threatened Monday to abandon a military hot line with the South and close a jointly operated office where officials from both Koreas interact. The North also said it would never again deal with President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea, calling him a “traitor,” although the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, said only last month that he was willing to participate in a summit meeting with Mr. Lee....

Categories Humor/Satire/North-South
January 20, 2011

South Korea’s Credibility Problem

China’s plans for the economic colonization of Rason in North Korea have set off a great deal of fretting in South Korea about China grabbing up North Korean resources. In my experience, those who fret about this are usually setting up an argument for South Korean investment in the North. But we know how that’s always ended. Instead of pouring more money into this bottomless pit, South Korea ought to let it be known that after reunification, Korea will invoke...

Categories North-South/Sunshine
December 28, 2010

Rumors Hint at Policy Shifts in U.S. and South Korea

From Engagement to Reunification? So says the Chosun Ilbo, in describing what would be a major policy shift for South Korea. From 2008 until now, the policy would best be described as reluctant engagement, which brought out North Korea’s violent and extortionate streak. Now, according to unnamed sources in the Unification Ministry, the administration seems to be looking for ways to prepare for and even accelerate reunification: The government is shifting the emphasis of North Korea policy from exchanges and...

Categories Korean War II/North-South/Sunshine/Washington Views
December 8, 2010

If You Must Bomb, Bomb Their Palaces

Now that Victor Cha has written that another Korean War is a very real possibility, that risk has become a matter of accepted conventional wisdom. Some in South Korea seem to be waiting for an excuse to restore deterrence through bombing. This is probably a mix of bluff and bluster, but there’s no arguing with South Korea’s right to self-defense and its need to restore deterrence. A lot of unthinkable things have already happened this year, and I certainly hope...

Categories Korean War II/NK Military/North-South/ROK Military