Search Results for: The Death of an Alliance

The deconstruction of the South Korean Human Rights Commission continues in the wake of veteran Korea hand Don Kirk’s report that the HRC supports tearing down the General MacArthur statue in Incheon. I have no reason to believe that Kirk would get something this important wrong, but commenter Antti and The Marmot declare themselves incredulous, in part because the HRC didn’t publish a formal statement. [Update 8/14: Kirk and the CSM have corrected the story to reflect that the HRC...

Let’s begin with the title of its editorial today, “Six-Party Talks Must Stay Focused on Essentials.” We are soon to learn that the non-essential matter to which the editorial refers is not the U.S. “hostile policy,” or the public statement in a congressional hearing or the Rodong Sinmun, or the new canard of U.S. nukes in South Korea, but human rights in North Korea, and more specifically, the U.S. position that it must be made a part of the talks....

The Dong-A Ilbo reports that Hong Seok-Hyun, the Korean Ambassador to the United States, will soon step down over his involvement in a campaign-finance scandal. He was already plagued by a previous tax conviction when he first started the job in February. That’s February of 2005. Update: The Korea Herald explains why the (left-wing) Uri-led government was so quick to throw Amb. Hong out of the lifeboat: Hong was attempting to help funnel money to the (right-wing) Grand National Party,...

Those who would prefer not to discuss what the North Korean regime is doing to its own people have sometimes advanced silly and sometimes fevered arguments that human rights advocacy is either a neocon (meaning Jewish) conspiracy or an evangelical enterprise. One author even managed to say both at once, focusing his attack on none other than Natan Sharansky: Who is Mr. Sharansky? He was a Jewish dissident in the former Soviet Union, which former President Ronald Reagan defined as...

With the news that Rep. Henry Hyde, R. Ill., Chairman of the House International Relations Committee, will soon retire, the race for succession appears to have begun in earnest. Two of the names most frequently mentioned as successors are those of Republican congressmen Dana Rohrabacher of California and Dan Burton of Illinois. Other candidates include Republican Reps. Jim Leach of Iowa, Chris Smith of New Jersey, Ed Royce of California, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida. With the exception of Burton,...

Our blood allies in Korea are asserting their “maturity” again. While we’re gathering to tell the world about a few-million odd North Koreans starved to death by a regime that always seems to find the ready cash for cruise missiles and fuel rods, “progressive” South Koreans are on the way to Inchon to tear down the statue of MacArthur. Fears of a violent clash mounted Friday after progressive civic groups wanting a statue of U.S. General Douglas MacArthur in Incheon...

First, I’d like to start by saying that the penultimate paragraph is so dead-on right that it redeems any flaws that I subjectively see in the rest of the piece: All that can be countered by engaging the Roh government in a struggle for the hearts of the South Korean people. The Bush administration can seek to speak directly to ordinary South Koreans about the horrors of Kim Jong Il’s gulag state, explain why the world cannot allow it to...

First, I’d like to start by saying that the penultimate paragraph is so dead-on right that it redeems any flaws that I subjectively see in the rest of the piece: All that can be countered by engaging the Roh government in a struggle for the hearts of the South Korean people. The Bush administration can seek to speak directly to ordinary South Koreans about the horrors of Kim Jong Il’s gulag state, explain why the world cannot allow it to...

Recently, a reporter named Chris Nelson, since retired and gone into the consulting business, made the mistake of preparing a confidential report for the South Korean Embassy in Washington, and then erroneously sending that report to his entire list of hundreds of e-mail newsletter subscribers. Two different anonymous sources sent me copies of the report, and the Washington Post has since covered the story of its accidental disclosure. I have decided that at least one section of the Nelson Report...

Today is petting zoo day (no, not this petting zoo), so blogging time is constrained for now. I was going through all of the relevant coverage of the Bush-Roh meet, was reading through Bush’s brief welcoming statement, and what do I see? It’s my honor to welcome the President of our very close ally to the Oval Office. I’ll have a statement; the President will have a statement. Then I’ll answer two questions from the American press. I first want...

Today is petting zoo day (no, not this petting zoo), so blogging time is constrained for now. I was going through all of the relevant coverage of the Bush-Roh meet, was reading through Bush’s brief welcoming statement, and what do I see? It’s my honor to welcome the President of our very close ally to the Oval Office. I’ll have a statement; the President will have a statement. Then I’ll answer two questions from the American press. I first want...

In the wake of its modest election beating and newly-implausible deniability that Sunshine has failed to do anything but exacerbate North Korea’s intransigence, could these be the first hints that we have entered the post-Sunshine age? Chun Young-Woo, the Foreign Ministry’s Diplomatic Policy Director, was in New York last week at a conference on the future of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and said this: Addressing a second-day session, Chun, who heads the South Korean delegation, said, “Although we will continue...

In the wake of its modest election beating and newly-implausible deniability that Sunshine has failed to do anything but exacerbate North Korea’s intransigence, could these be the first hints that we have entered the post-Sunshine age? Chun Young-Woo, the Foreign Ministry’s Diplomatic Policy Director, was in New York last week at a conference on the future of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and said this: Addressing a second-day session, Chun, who heads the South Korean delegation, said, “Although we will continue...

The final Washington-area event of North Korea Freedom Week was a prayer vigil at a Maryland church last Saturday evening. I should have attended, but instead took pity on my neglected family, who had become a blogger’s widow and orphans over the course of the previous week. Dennis Halpin, who is a senior aide to Representative Henry Hyde, the retiring Chairman of the House International Relations Committee, spoke, and he was kind enough to send me the text of his...

The final Washington-area event of North Korea Freedom Week was a prayer vigil at a Maryland church last Saturday evening. I should have attended, but instead took pity on my neglected family, who had become a blogger’s widow and orphans over the course of the previous week. Dennis Halpin, who is a senior aide to Representative Henry Hyde, the retiring Chairman of the House International Relations Committee, spoke, and he was kind enough to send me the text of his...

Exit Neville? This headline claims that the United States and South Korea have agreed to “get tough” if North Korea tests a nuke. Color me suspicious, although these words from the MoFA are certainly a departure from the official line at the Ministry of Silly Talks: “If North Korea goes through with a nuclear test, it will start along a road where the future cannot be guaranteed,” Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon said in a debate of the 21st Century North...

Exit Neville? This headline claims that the United States and South Korea have agreed to “get tough” if North Korea tests a nuke. Color me suspicious, although these words from the MoFA are certainly a departure from the official line at the Ministry of Silly Talks: “If North Korea goes through with a nuclear test, it will start along a road where the future cannot be guaranteed,” Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon said in a debate of the 21st Century North...