May 26, 2009

Will we see a more proactive South Korea?

While I’m hearing a lot of commentary on what Obama should and shouldn’t do with his North Korea problem, I am curious as to what South Korea is thinking. I have been told by contacts in South Korea that these latest moves by the DPRK have not been able to break through the average South Korean’s desensitized shell. Indeed, South Korean headlines seem to suggest the South is just as obsessed with the nuclear test’s affect on the economy, if...

Categories North-South/South Korea
May 26, 2009

Bolton: Expel North Korea from the U.N.

[Bolton] urged Obama’s team to first put North Korea back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism following its removal in the waning months of the Bush administration.  Bolton also urged the UN Security Council to expel Pyongyang from the world body as a “persistent violator” of UN resolutions.  [AFP] The accusation is obviously true, and it could be justified for human rights reasons alone. North Korea has also consistently stolen U.N. development and food aid and refused to...

Categories "United" Nations
May 26, 2009

And Now, the Fallout

Kim Jong Il has followed yesterday’s nuke test by firing two more short-range missiles, as a rudderless world tries to decide how to respond.  When you consider each of these developments, ask yourself whether Kim Jong Il could reasonably have anticipated that it would happen.  So far, everything I see happening fits within the range of Kim Jong Il’s calculation of “acceptable consequences.” FOR ONE THING, KIM JONG IL IS PROBABLY BETTING that John Kerry and Nancy Pelosi don’t possess...

Categories "United" Nations/Diplomacy/Proliferation/WMD
May 26, 2009

In ‘The New Ledger:’ Holding China Accountable

Here’s a quote: Afer the 2006 nuclear test, John Bolton pressured China into voting for U.N. Security Council Resolution 1718, which seemed to impose tough sanctions on North Korea. A detailed study by the economist and North Korea expert Marcus Noland later revealed that China also undermined the very sanctions it voted for in Resolution 1718 with increased cross-border aid and trade. China also instructed its banks to free up the movement of North Korean assets. Most recently, China blocked...

Categories China/Proliferation/WMD
May 25, 2009

Nuclear Groundhog Day in North Korea

[Welcome to the readers coming in from the Wall Street Journal, Gateway Pundit, Ed Driscoll, Patterico, and Little Green Footballs, and thanks to the authors of those sites for linking.] Well, all I can say is, thank God Christopher Hill’s ingenious diplomacy disarmed North Korea in time: “The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea successfully conducted one more underground nuclear test on May 25 as part of the measures to bolster up its nuclear deterrent for self-defence in every way as...

Categories Proliferation/WMD
May 25, 2009

Fifth Column Update: Pyongyang Orders a Hot Summer for Seoul

I certainly don’t believe for an instant that North Korea’s infiltration of the South was suspended during the DJ or Roh administrations; rather, I think stories about that infiltration were less likely to be leaked or reported under the former left-wing administrations unless they were just too newsworthy to suppress.  But if North Korea’s agents had ever gone to ground, they’ve come back up to prepare for the summer riot season: The North Korean regime recently ordered officials and organizations...

Categories Refugees/The Fifth Column
May 24, 2009

Meet the New Boss, Part 2: Kim Jong Un Makes First Appearances in North Korea’s Official Mythology

Only in a place like North Korea could a major development in a king’s succession be signaled in a kindergarten.  The Daily NK reports that they’re teaching the kids a new song in Pyongyang: In Pyongyang elementary schools, teachers have been teaching their students “The Song of General Kim Jong Woon.   A Japanese source released a rumor to Daily NK on Thursday, “On the 6th, in a few elementary schools in Pyongyang, students learned “˜The Song of General Kim...

Categories Kremlinology
May 24, 2009

Dr. Hwang, I’ll Need Ten Copies of Lavrenti Beria by Next Week

Via a reliable source — though it’s third-hand information — I’m told that William Stanton is still very much in the running to become the next de facto U.S. ambassador to Taiwan (head of the American Institute on Taiwan).  Stanton’s recent comments about Laura Ling and Euna Lee (“stupid,” “a distraction from the bigger issues” — and this to a delegation of congressional staffers, no less) tell us about all we need to know about his suave diplomatic skills.  He’s...

Categories Diplomacy
May 23, 2009

Some Final Thoughts on Roh Moo-Hyun

Even though most indications were pointing to an unhappy ending to the former president’s legacy, I was still shocked to hear the news of Roh’s death. His presidency, beginning with the elections that got him inaugurated, served as a constant backdrop during my time in South Korea, which correlated with his term. I arrived in Korea just after the conclusion of the World Cup. Tensions were high in relation to the unfortunate tank incident involving the U.S. military and South...

Categories Appeasement/North-South
May 22, 2009

Roh Moo Hyun Dead, an Apparent Suicide

Update 2:   Here’s a translation of Roh’s suicide note. “I’m indebted to too many people. The pain that I caused to so many people is too great. The pain in the coming days is unfathomable,” Roh said in the note disclosed by police. “Due to my frail health, I cannot do anything. I cannot read or write. Don’t be too sad. Don’t blame anyone. Life and death are identical parts of nature. It’s fate,” the note said. It also...

Categories Korean Politics/Sunshine
May 22, 2009

The Banality of James Church

The pseudonymous author is asked to perform his only apparent talent for an interviewer:  writing dialogue between fictional North Korean bureaucrats — here, as based on Church’s assumptions about the ongoing captivity of Laura Ling and Euna Lee.  Judging from what Church wrote for this interview, I wouldn’t call Church a bad writer or an especially good one.  I suspect the final revelations about Ling and Lee, if we ever have them, will be unkind to some of Church’s assumptions,...

Categories Media Criticism/WTF?
May 21, 2009

OFK’s 15 Minutes: We’re in the Wall Street Journal Today

This blog is mentioned in a front-page story in the Wall Street Journal about Google Earth and North Korea. Curtis Melvin, who has done vastly more study of North Korea on Google Earth, deservedly gets the most ink, but it’s nice to see this humble blog get mentioned: Joshua Stanton, an attorney in Washington who once served in the U.S. military in South Korea, used Google Earth to look for one of the country’s notorious prisons. In early 2007, he...

Categories Blogs & Blogging/Google Earth
May 21, 2009

Sunshine Death Watch

BUT WOULDN’T THAT BE NEEDLESSLY STRENUOUS?  South Korean conservatives call for their government to close down Kaesong before Kim Jong Il gets around to it.  Personally, I think things are going perfectly just as they are. THE GRAND NATIONALS ARE REALLY TWO PARTIES, to hear Andy Jackson describe Park Geun Hye’s efforts to keep her people out of President Lee’s government.  Fortunately for them, the left is even more fragmented and rudderless, because that and the fact of incumbency are...

Categories An Alliance?/Korean Politics/Sunshine
May 21, 2009

Smart, Tough Diplomacy: Hillary Clinton Asks Bloggers to Free U.S. Journalists from North Korea

Because if there’s one thing Kim Jong Il simply cannot withstand, it’s that lethal instrument of soft power known as “snark:” US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday urged women students to use the Internet to campaign for the release of two American women journalists held in North Korea. Clinton urged graduates of Barnard College, a women’s university in New York City, to show their opposition to Pyongyang’s detention of the two journalists who are due to go on...

Categories Abductions/Activism/Diplomacy/Unintended Humor/WTF?
May 20, 2009

Allison Kilkenny vs. John Bolton

Kilkenny may not like John Bolton, but she looks pretty foolish bashing him in her “Unreported” piece which was published today – especially since Bolton’s Wall Street Journal article accurately predicted nuclear intentions coming from Iran. To add to Ms. Kilkenny’s dismay, Bolton is also anticipating another North Korea nuclear test, something she feels Bolton is foolish for simply suggesting. Kilkenny writes: Experts on North Korea say Kim Jong-il’s motives center around receiving aid, and fear of the United States,...

Categories Media Criticism/Missiles/Proliferation
May 19, 2009

Another Nuclear Test in the Works?

I’m hearing rumors that North Korea has all the trappings set for another nuclear test. All that is missing is an order from Kim Jong Il to set it off. Presumably, the order will come if North Korea believes it has few other bargaining options left on the table. Talk has it that whenever and if that will ever be, the North does have the capability to quickly conduct a test on short notice. What can we expect will happen...

Categories Proliferation
May 19, 2009

North Korea Shoots a Messenger

Surely there is some sensible middle ground between these two extremes of personnel management — in America, diplomats who push for policies that fail get promoted.  We learn today that pressing for bold diplomatic initiatives turns out to be less career-enhancing in the Foreign Ministry of the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea: North Korea executed its pointman on South Korea last year, holding him responsible for wrong predictions about Seoul’s new conservative government that has ditched a decade of engagement...

Categories Diplomacy/Inside NK/Kremlinology/NK Economics
May 18, 2009

Does North Korea’s “Combative Behavior” Signal the Beginning of the End?

For years, I have heard predictions about the fall of North Korea. During my second year in Korea, a South Korean government official told me he thought the Kim Jong Il regime would crumble within two years and reunification would follow. That was in 2003. Since then, I have heard numerous predictions from Koreans and the international community alike regarding the state of the DPRK and how much longer it has to survive. With the Kaesong project in the dumps,...

Categories Regime Change