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March 1, 2017

Weirdly, corroboration emerges that Kim Won-hong was ousted for “human rights abuses”

Charging a man with murder in this place was like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500. – Apocalypse Now Earlier this month, when the purge or demotion of State Security Minister Kim Won-hong was first reported, I seized on one rather bizarre part of the justification for his ouster from that key post for “corruption, abuse of power and human rights abuses.” North Korea has always angrily denied the existence of human rights abuses and called itself a...

Human Rights/Kremlinology

February 28, 2017

North Korea should negotiate with the U.S.: No Rodong Sinmun op-ed, ever

This was supposed to be a big week for talk-to-North-Korea crowd, a constituency that’s well-represented in certain academic circles and op-ed pages … and pretty much nowhere else. Track 1.5 talks between current North Korean diplomats and former U.S. diplomats were supposed to begin tomorrow — in Washington, no less. This aroused certain Nobel Peace Prize aspirants and their megaphones in the New York Times and the AP about the prospect that Donald Trump want to might cut a deal...

Appeasement/Diplomacy

February 27, 2017

Malaysia’s lax enforcement of North Korea sanctions has finally come home

Over the weekend, Malaysian authorities painstakingly decontaminated a terminal of the Kuala Lumpur International Airport where North Korean agents – including a diplomat – carried out a lethal attack with the nerve agent VX, a substance so deadly that a tiny droplet can kill an adult. The authorities are clearly concerned that the use of a persistent chemical weapon of mass destruction in a crowded airport terminal will cause panic among Malaysian citizens and members of the traveling public, as...

Arms Trafficking/Money Laundering/Sanctions/Shipping sanctions/Southeast Asia

February 24, 2017

N. Korea just killed a guy with one of the WMDs that caused us to invade Iraq … in a crowded airport terminal, in a friendly nation.

Last night, Malaysian police revealed that Kim Jong-nam’s killers murdered him with VX, the deadliest of the nerve agents. I had hypothesized before that the killers almost certainly acted on orders from His Porcine Majesty. Saddam Hussein’s suspected possession of stockpiles of VX was at the core of our justification for invading Iraq. This time, the case doesn’t rely on grainy satellite photos or shadowy, unnamed sources. (And this time, an invasion is also the wrong answer to the problem;...

Anju Links/Southeast Asia/Terrorism (NK)

February 23, 2017

Must read: Brian Myers on what North Korea really wants (hint: it’s South Korea)

Over the years, the soft-liners’ explanations for why Pyongyang sacrificed billions of dollars and millions of lives to build a nuclear program have shifted. First, they said it just wanted the electricity. Then, they said it wanted a bargaining chip to trade away for better relations with us. Now, they say it just wants to protect itself from us. Unlike them, Brian Myers has listened to what Pyongyang has been telling its own subjects — it wants reunification, on its own terms. North...

Korean Politics/Korean Society/Korean War II

February 22, 2017

Does Kim Jong-un consciously imitate Dr. Evil?

As I contemplate both the competence and the incompetence with which North Korea (probably) executed the murder of Kim Jong-nam, I can’t help reflecting on how it often seems to combine the guile and ruthlessness of SPECTRE with the executive competence of Dr. Evil. On one hand, the plot worked with ruthless efficiency. The target is dead. A potential Pu Yi is removed from the scene, and its terrorist objectives have been successful, at least in part. The South Korean...

Kim Jong Un

February 21, 2017

Video of N. Korea’s child slaves shows us (again) the value of Pyongyang’s signature

The video was clear and stark. Its authenticity was beyond serious question. It would have shocked us if North Korea had not already dulled our capacity for outrage. Indeed, there are times when I think it has dulled even mine. Then, last December, came the videos of North Korean children set to work in coal mines, and carrying sacks of heavy stones to build railroads. [Original reports here and here.] The Daily Mirror called it a “chain gang,” but the...

Human Rights/Human Trafficking

February 17, 2017

GOP heavyweights push for secondary boycott of North Korea

Six Republican senators — Ted Cruz (TX), Cory Gardner (CO), Thom Tillis (NC), Marco Rubio (FL), Pat Toomey (PA) and David Perdue (GA) — have signed a letter to newly confirmed Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin* calling for improved implementation and enforcement of the North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhnancement Act (NKSPEA). As Kim Jung-un has exposed his willingness to increase ballistic missile testing with the ultimate goal of achieving nuclear breakout, the potential for this regime to attain...

Sanctions/U.S. Law/U.S. Politics/Washington Views

February 16, 2017

Dear New York Times: This is why your North Korea reporting stinks

I often say that the New York Times consistently has the worst North Korea coverage of any major U.S. newspaper. Next time someone asks me why that is, I suppose I’ll point them to this story by Jane Perlez, Choe Sang-hun and Motoko Rich, which could be the exemplar of everything that’s wrong with it in a single hyperlink. It was forwarded to me by an experienced journalist who writes for another major newspaper, and who probably wouldn’t want me to...

Fiskings/Media Criticism

February 15, 2017

The man who wouldn’t be king: the short, happy life of Kim Jong-nam

Kim Jong Nam, the estranged older half-brother of Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s leader, was killed in an attack at Kuala Lumpur airport, Malaysian police confirmed on Tuesday, in an apparent assassination. The 46-year-old was assaulted by a woman who covered his face with a cloth laced with liquid as he was waiting for a flight to Macau, said Fadzil Ahmat, a Malaysian police official. He was confirmed dead after being taken to hospital. [Financial Times] The kindest way to...

Kim Jong Un/Kremlinology/Terrorism (NK)

February 14, 2017

Trump struggles on North Korea, but it’s still the first quarter (updated)

By this time tomorrow, we’ll know whether initial reports that Kim Jong-nam was assassinated by two North Korean women with a poison needle at the Kuala Lumpur Airport were wrong or only half-wrong. For now, I’ll dwell on grading the Trump administration’s answers to its first North Korean test – the test of a missile system whose moderate range belies its potential dangerousness, given its potential to be launched from a mobile carrier or a submarine. So far, that grade...

"United" Nations/Missiles/Washington Views

February 13, 2017

Some on-point congressional testimony on sanctions as part of a broader N. Korea policy

Reuters reports that, following North Korea’s weekend missile test, the Trump administration “will consider a full range of options in a response to Pyongyang’s missile test” that are “calibrated to show U.S. resolve while avoiding escalation.” Those options will include increasing “pressure on China to rein in North Korea,” “new U.S. sanctions to tighten financial controls, an increase in U.S. naval and air assets in and around the Korean peninsula and accelerated installation of new missile defense systems in South Korea.”...

Sanctions/Washington Views

February 10, 2017

Eight reasons why reopening Kaesong could be a deal-breaker for the U.S.-Korea alliance

More and more, I am hearing that Moon Jae-in, the left-wing front-runner in the South Korean presidential election, is talking about reopening and expanding the Kaesong Industrial Complex. It’s apparent that Mr. Moon and his supporters haven’t thought through the potential legal and diplomatic consequences of that. Perhaps this post will help concentrate some minds by telling Koreans, in frank terms, what most people in Washington really think about that idea. 1. Kaesong violates U.N. sanctions. I heard somewhere that...

An Alliance?/Kaesong/Sunshine

February 8, 2017

Leaked U.N. report reveals record seizure of North Korean arms last August (updated)

The 2017 report of the U.N. Panel of Experts isn’t due to be published for another month, but a Kyodo News reporter has already obtained and published leaked excerpts. The focus of Kyodo’s story is the now-familiar (and unquestionably accurate) castigation of member state governments for not putting enough will or resources into the enforcement of North Korea sanctions, but I’d like to start with this revelation: “An interdiction of the vessel Jie Shun was the largest seizure of ammunition...

Arms Trafficking/Shipping sanctions

February 8, 2017

Roberta Cohen at 38 North: A Serious Human Rights Negotiation with North Korea

Roberta Cohen, Co-Chair Emeritus of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, and one of the lions among those speaking out for the rights of the North Korean people, has published a detailed and well-thought-out case for why human rights should be part of any negotiation with Pyongyang, along with a tough-love strategy for conducting that negotiation. Anyone in the Trump administration who may be tempted to sideline human rights should read it in full, but I’ll summarize it:...

Diplomacy/Human Rights

February 7, 2017

Kim Jong-un flips the freeze deal crowd the Hawaiian good luck sign

Unlike most of the appease-now scolds, Jeffrey Lewis also writes things that are worth reading. He can snark with the best of them. He can be genuinely interesting when he sticks to technology, despite his occasional lapses into tendentiousness. His imagery analysis and geolocation are as persuasive as his policy views are surreal. If Lewis never talked policy at all, frankly, I might never question him, but when he talks about what a swell and moderate guy Shen Dingli is,...

Appeasement/Diplomacy

February 6, 2017

The Commerce Department should review PUST’s export licenses for North Korea

Last week, several news outlets reported that representatives of PUST, the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, are in the United States, seeking support to expand their curriculum in North Korea. PUST didn’t say what kind of support it seeks, but recent reports suggest that PUST has lost donors and had to slash its budget. PUST is probably looking for money. Donors, however, would be wise to keep their checkbooks closed until the Commerce Department and a U.N. Panel of...

Cyberwar/Engagement/Technology

February 3, 2017

Kim Won-hong may have just lost the world’s most dangerous job

Three weeks ago, as mandated by section 304 of the NKSPEA, the Treasury Department designated seven North Korean officials, including Kim Won-hong, head of North Korea’s Ministry of State Security, or MSS. The MSS operates Pyongyang’s horrific political prison camp system, and the basis for his designation was human rights abuses that a U.N. Commission of Inquiry has called “crimes against humanity.” Clearly, Kim Won-hong bears a large share of the responsibility for those crimes. At the same time the...

Human Rights/Kremlinology