August 2, 2009

Kim Kye-Gwan Purged?

Writing in the Asia Times, Don Kirk passes along reports that Kim Kye Gwan, the man who tricked Chris Hill into Agreed Framework II and a host of unilateral concessions that followed it, has been purged. He seems to have disappeared, and nobody has a clue as to whether he’s dead or alive, working on a chicken farm or sent to a prison for re-education. Analysts here believe Kim may have become a scapegoat for hardliners in the ascendancy in...

Categories Diplomacy/Kremlinology
August 1, 2009

What’s Still Missing from Obama’s North Korea Policy

Suddenly, editors at prominent liberal publications feel safe letting stories about North Korea’s atrocities see page one, and scholars at prominent liberal think tanks feel safe raising human rights. The topic is no longer subsumed uncomfortably beneath the misbegotten hope that ignoring atrocities unequaled in these times would allow us to negotiate and verify the disarmament of a nation that remained blanketed in secrecy and terror. (Proponents of this premise, which crowned us with the glory of Agreed Frameworks I...

Categories Human Rights/Washington Views
July 31, 2009

Marcus Noland on Sanctioning North Korea

First, a note of congratulations to Mr. Noland on being named Deputy Director of the Peterson Institute.  Noland also has a paper out on the prospects for disarming North Korea though sanctions.  Here’s a teaser, and I’ll let you read the rest on your own: Given the extremely high priority the North Korean regime places on its military capacity, it is unlikely that the pressure the world can bring to bear on North Korea will be sufficient to induce the...

Categories China & Korea/NK Economics/Sanctions
July 31, 2009

Ban Ki-moon to Save the Day?

Last night the Facebook page for Laura Ling and Euna Lee posted an an Agence France-Presse article stating that U.N. head Ban Ki-moon has “launched an initiative to secure the release of two US journalists detained in North Korea but would not disclose details.” Call me cynical, but if he can actually free these two reporters, it will somewhat restore my lost faith in the ability of Ban – and the U.N. for that matter. Although I must admit, crazier...

Categories "United" Nations/Ling/Lee Incident
July 29, 2009

Breaking: N. Korea Seizes S. Korean Fishing Boat

Sounds like the boat, which carried a crew of four, strayed across the NLL when its GPS system malfunctioned: The fishing boat, skippered by a man only identified by his last name, Park, departed from the port of Geojin on the eastern coast at 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday and sailed past the Northern Limit Line (NLL), the de facto inter-Korean maritime border, as far as 20 miles off the port of Jejin, he said. Geojin is about 150km northeast of...

Categories North-South
July 29, 2009

Being Irrational and Ill-Informed Still No Barrier to Getting a Global Audience

No one in the Obama Administration sounds terribly interested in North Korea’s offer of a bilateral dialogue about what concessions America is prepared to grant North Korea this year, but at the Christian Science Monitor, Professor Zhiqun Zhu of Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania (you remember it from the matchbook covers, right?) calls North Korea’s statement “a rare opportunity” and writes one of the most scary-stupid things I’ve read all year: Frankly, it is unrealistic for the US to ask...

Categories Fiskings
July 29, 2009

Chosun Ilbo Profiles Hannah Kim

Miss Kim is the very young woman I wrote about the other day who single-handedly obtained a presidential proclamation thanking Korean War vets for their service and honoring the sacrifices of those who died in the war.  The picture accompanying the Chosun’s article confirms that the creator of the proclamation is the same woman I briefly met at a function in Washington about a year ago (also the only time I’ve met Jodi in person). Kim established a group called...

Categories Korean War
July 27, 2009

Yachting the River Styx and the Lies of Christine Ahn

Several of you e-mailed me about the story of the luxury yachts that North Korea had attempted to purchase from the Italian manufacturer Azimuth-Benetti.  I started a post and didn’t finish it, partially because that post became something long-winded, disjointed, and unpublishable.  Meanwhile, a few more details have trickled in about the boats and the purchase.  Contrary to doubts expressed in earlier reports, Italian authorities have concluded that the boats were indeed for His Withering Majesty, although you have to...

Categories "United" Nations/Famine & Food Aid/Sanctions
July 25, 2009

Give to Them As They Do, Not as They Say

In our second great WTF moment of this week, the Republican Party just called me asking for money to buy ad space to condemn Barack Obama’s weak Jimmy Carter-style foreign policy. Set aside the fact that the major premise of the pitch just doesn’t square with the truth.  How the hell can anyone make that claim with a straight face in light of George W. Bush’s North Korea legacy?  Did these people, in the name of a strong foreign policy,...

Categories U.S. Politics
July 25, 2009

Ex-N. Korean Special Forces Soldier Alleges Biowar Experiments on Handicapped Kids; North Korea’s Jihad Against Christians

The accuser, Im Chun-Yong, escaped from North Korea with several comrades in his unit a decade ago.  That alone should tell you something about the state of morale in North Korea’s most elite forces even then.  Im claims that he kept this story to himself until now: “If you are born mentally or physically deficient, says Im, the government says your best contribution to society”¦ is as a guinea pig for biological and chemical weapons testing.”  [….] The former military...

Categories Human Rights/Religion/The Camps
July 24, 2009

Take a Drink!

Curtis reminds me: Recalling that the Korean war of aggression ignited by the U.S. imperialists 59 years ago was the most brutal and brigandish war in the history of world wars, the statement continued [….] Should the U.S. imperialists ignite another war, oblivious of the lesson drawn from their past defeat, the heroic Korean People’s Army will fully display its invincible might of the powerful revolutionary army of Mt. Paektu which has grown under the care of the great Songun...

Categories Propaganda/Unintended Humor
July 24, 2009

Why My Diplomacy Is Smarter Than Your Diplomacy

You remember what diplomacy was like in the days before it was smart, right? When diplomats let slip undiplomatic truths about Kim Jong Il being a “tyrannical dictator” who subjected his people to a “hellish nightmare?” When Presidents “loathed” their adversaries instead of sitting down and sharing a bong with them? Thank goodness change has come! It says a lot about the North Koreans that they can’t just rise above this and hold the high ground. So does this mean...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy