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January 26, 2017

God and Eric Hoffer in North Korea

Since yesterday’s post, I’ve had a chance to watch the interview with Thae Yong-ho. Thae said many interesting things, but none was so striking as the point when, about 9 minutes into the interview, he talked about the good fortune of getting his family to South Korea and said, “God help[ed] me.” Thae did not strike me as an emotional or spiritual man. He has spent his whole life shielded from religion. We know that his political conversion was a gradual...

Religion

January 25, 2017

Thae Yong-ho is giving North Korean resistance a voice & a vision it never had

Sometime today, Arirang TV will publish an exclusive, hour-long English-language interview with Thae Yong-ho, who was North Korea’s Deputy Ambassador to the United Kingdom until the day last August when he gathered his two sons and gravely told them that he was cutting off their “slave chains.” NK News has a summary of the interview here. I’ll link it when Arirang posts it. (Update: Here’s the full interview, and a Wall Street Journal story on Thae by Jonathan Cheng.) Of course, Thae isn’t the...

Defectors/Regime Change/Resistance

January 24, 2017

North Korean market traders are fighting The Man

Via Yonhap: “It’s not that hard nowadays to see women stand up to despotic wardens and security agents while shaking their fingers at them at jangmadang,” the Radio Free Asia (RFA) said, citing a source in Pyongyang who recently visited China. “In such cases, nearby observers also join in and push the officials, something that was very rare to see just a few years ago.” Now North Korean people are no longer giving in to officials unconditionally, the source said....

Capitalism/Resistance

January 23, 2017

RFA: North Korean border guard under arrest after killing seven comrades

This blog has closely followed reports of indiscipline within the North Korean military, resistance against the state, strategies for political subversion, and the breakdown of border control. Last week, another report of a mass shooting incident by a North Korean border guard reinforced my belief that morale and discipline within the border guard force are declining. A young North Korean man conscripted to guard a customs post on his country’s border with China in (sic) under arrest for shooting dead...

Border Control/NK Military/Regime Change

January 19, 2017

Why North Korea will go back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism this year

As I write, Yonhap is reporting that North Korea may be fueling up two ICBMs for a test. Meanwhile, in Washington, Texas Republican Ted Poe has already shaped one part of the likely response to that. Poe isn’t one to back down from a fight — not with leukemia, and not with North Korea. He’s back at the helm of the House Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade, where one of his first acts this year was to reintroduce a...

Cyberwar/Terrorism (NK)

January 18, 2017

Why talk of human rights unnerves North Korean diplomats so much, and why that matters

The Wall Street Journal’s Jonathan Cheng has taken note of the rise in defections by members of the North Korean elite. Over the last year, this blog closely followed that trend, including the unprecedented group defections of workers in Malta, China, and Russia; soldiers guarding the Yalu River border; high-ranking intelligence officers; and even diplomats. Last week, a Chinese media report also claimed that “approximately 10 North Korean IT technicians and hackers went missing around 9 p.m. Wednesday in Changchun in...

Defectors/Deprogramming/Propaganda/Subversion

January 17, 2017

North Korean ship that sank last week may have been used for arms smuggling

A North Korean freighter with the not-entirely-Korean-sounding name of Chong Gen went to the bottom of the Tsushima Strait last week with nearly 5,720 tonnes* of rice aboard. The crew sent a distress signal and took to their lifeboats in time for the Japanese Coast Guard to rescue the entire crew of 26. All are reported safe. Lucky them. Most North Korean ships that have arrived in Japan recently have carried only the dead. Now, I’m no maritime expert, but 26 sounds like a very...

Shipping sanctions

January 13, 2017

Treasury designates N. Korea’s Himmler & “Angel of Death,” & Kim Jong-un’s sister

On Wednesday, the Treasury Department designated seven North Korean officials under Executive Order 13687, and two ministries under Executive Order 13722 (the authority has legal implications, which I’ll touch on later in this post). Along with the designations, Treasury and State issued, respectively, a statement and a report explaining the designations. “The North Korean regime not only engages in severe human rights abuses, but it also implements rigid censorship policies and conceals its inhumane and oppressive behavior,” said John E. Smith,...

Human Rights/Sanctions

January 12, 2017

Rex Tillerson on North Korea

I’ve been letting confirmation hearings play in the background at the office this week, and I was able to catch enough of Rex Tillerson’s hearing to listen up at key moments. You can watch the whole thing here if you have time; it’s likely that North Korea also came up during other moments that I didn’t catch. Of course, I was keen to hear Tillerson’s views about North Korea. I was also keen to hear (indirectly) the views of the transition team...

U.S. Politics/Washington Views

January 11, 2017

Two must-reads, via David Straub & Evans Revere

I sacrificed my blogging time for a greater cause today, but instead will direct you to the sober and terrifying analyses of two of my favorite left-of-center North Korea watchers, David Straub and Evans Revere. Both will give you a good idea of exactly where Kim Jong-un thinks his nuclear program is leading, and it doesn’t involve bargaining it away. Similar to this and this in some regards, in case you missed those posts.

Washington Views

January 10, 2017

WaPo: Trump’s Asia team leans toward sanctioning N. Korea’s Chinese enablers

For now, this is mostly leaks and whispers in a Josh Rogin column, but it’s encouraging. Behind the scenes, however, the Trump transition is preparing its own pivot to Asia. As the team that will implement that policy takes shape, what’s emerging is an approach that harkens back to past Republican administrations — but also seeks to actualize the Obama administration’s ambition of enhancing the U.S. presence in the region. Transition officials say the Trump administration will take a hawkish...

Sanctions/Washington Views

January 9, 2017

Is this what a North Korean malaise speech looks like?

Readers know that I’ve been critical of those who cherry-pick words out of North Korean dictators’ rambling New Year speeches to find evidence to support their arguments. Having made the sacrifice of actually reading this one (full text below the jump), I would not characterize it as profoundly different from the same old crap North Korean dictators have told their subjects year after year. No, it was not quite a North Korean “malaise speech,” but it was filled with clear...

Kim Jong Un

January 4, 2017

Yun Byung-se, The Indispensable Man

Park Geun-hye, the cautious triangulatrix who belatedly became South Koreaâ€™s most subversive (to North Korea) president for two decades, is all but gone, and almost everyone in South Korea is applauding. None, however, have applauded with as much enthusiasm as those on South Koreaâ€™s far left, who fill a spectrum between anti-anti-North Korean and violently pro-North Korean. The left now senses that it has an advantage headed into next yearâ€™s presidential campaign and hopes to end Seoul’s campaign of diplomatic...

Africa/Diplomacy/Human Trafficking/Sanctions

January 3, 2017

Trump’s tweets show the right instincts on North Korea.

Kim Jong-un’s New Year speech turned out to more interesting than I’d predicted. No, he isn’t going on Atkins; he’s threatening to fire an ICBM that can hit the United States with a nuke. One wonders how the usual suspects at 38 North will spin this speech into predictions of glasnost and perestroika, but for now, consistent with another prediction I made, Kim Jong-un’s transition-year provocations are molding the President-Elect’s policy at a critical moment, and not to Kim Jong-un’s...

China & Korea/U.S. Politics

December 19, 2016

Citizens of Pyongyang, My Name is Thae Yong-ho (Part 2)

Either someone in Seoul is reading this site, or great minds think alike. Thae Yong-ho, North Korea’s former Deputy Ambassador to the U.K., who defected to Seoul earlier this year with his wife and two sons, is leaving the protection of South Korea’s National Intelligence Service and entering South Korean society, where he will not remain silent. The report claims that Thae brought “images of documents related to financial activities at the North Korean embassy in the UK” that prove...

Propaganda/Subversion

December 15, 2016

What’s that? You want the Sunshine Policy back? Good luck with that.

If Nate Silver is feeling humble these days, just let him try to predict who wins the next election in South Korea. In the 12 months between now and the time South Korea elects its next president, the ruling Saenuri party will probably break up. God willing, new candidates will emerge to supplant the dismal fare it has served until now. Divisions between the pro- and anti-Park Geun-hye factions may or may not heal. Ban Ki-moon may or may not...

Kaesong/Korean Politics/Sunshine/U.S. & Korea

December 13, 2016

Trump is right: China isn’t helping us disarm N. Korea

The Chinese government and the anti-anti-Beijing commentariat in the U.S. are apoplectic over Donald Trump again â€” this time, because Trump questioned the sacrosanct one-China policy and Chinaâ€™s cooperation in disarming North Korea: Trumpâ€™s latest foray into East Asian affairs came when he was asked by â€œFox News Sundayâ€ about the planning for the Dec. 2 call. He said he learned about the call â€œan hour or twoâ€ before it took place but said he understood the stakes. â€œI fully...

China/U.S. Politics

December 12, 2016

The Rime of the Uninsured Mariner

Ah! Well a-day! What evil looks Had I from old and young! Instead of the cross, the albatross About my neck was hung. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner If last week’s posts on U.N. security council resolution 2321 and the recent Treasury Department designations have had a common theme, it’s that Treasury’s reasonably strong designations have done much to redeem a relatively weak U.N. resolution, and to warn Chinese banks and companies about the risks...

Shipping sanctions