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May 17, 2009

Kaesong: Dead or Just Pining?

[Updated below] The headline is pretty much what I’d predicted three years ago: “North Korea announces nullification of all ‘Kaesong agreements,’” and that’s from the Hanky: North Korea’s military leadership has made statements hinting they would demand a withdrawal of businesses from Kaesong, but this is the first time the Bureau has brought up the possibility. In this notification, North Korea said, “We announce the nullification of all Kaesong Industrial Complex agreements made between the two Koreas which gave preference...

Appeasement/NK Economics/Sunshine

May 17, 2009

Victor Cha: Let’s Reward Terrorism!

If Victor Cha has ever persuaded me of anything, it’s of the paradox that some of the most highly educated and academically intelligent people never learn. Cha, one of the architects of the Bush Administration’s magnificently unsuccessful opening to Kim Jong Il’s North Korea, draws on that disqualification to advise us who should bring Laura Ling and Euna Lee home, and how. Having participated in a mission to bring home the remains of American servicemen killed in the Korean War,...

Abductions/Diplomacy/Terrorism (NK)

May 15, 2009

Clinton Welcomes North Korean “Trial” of U.S. Journalists

So North Korea is about to subject two American journalists to one of the world’s most opaque, arbitrary, and harsh judicial systems. This would mark the first North Korean trial of an American in recent years, if ever. And although our Secretary of State calls the charges “baseless,” she sounds just thrilled to pieces at the prospect of two of her country’s citizens facing a revolutionary tribunal: At a press appearance with Malaysia’s foreign minister, Clinton cast the announcement as,...

Abductions/Diplomacy

May 15, 2009

Court Trials in North Korea

Yes, the concept of a court trial is hard to fathom in the context of North Korea, but apparently, they do exist over there. Now that we have a court date set for the (questionable) accusations posed against U.S. reporters Euna Lee and Laura Ling, what can we expect to happen in a North Korean court hearing? Slate has an interesting article exploring the topic. For those wondering if the trial will be public, Slate reports: Trials are supposed to...

Inside NK

May 15, 2009

S. Korea Tightens Controls on Dual-Use Technology Transfers to N. Korea

I’ve long suspected that technology transfers to Kaesong included many dual-use items, including American technology, that the North Koreans would easily put to destructive uses. South Korea finally seems to be doing something about this: South Korea’s audit agency expressed concern Wednesday that materials used to develop weapons of mass destruction may enter North Korea due to Seoul’s lax monitoring and advised the Unification Ministry to tighten rules. The ministry, in charge of overseeing personnel and equipment exchanges with North...

Proliferation/Sunshine/Technology/WMD

May 14, 2009

North Korea Sets a Trial Date for Laura Ling and Euna Lee; NK Won’t Talk to Us

Why now? All I can do is guess, but it’s probably a combination of diplomatic convenience and the likelihood that they finally gave their interrogators what they wanted. In announcing the trial date, the North’s state-run news agency, KCNA, gave no further details, such as what charges they faced. But Pyongyang had earlier said that it found evidence of illegal entry and unspecified hostile acts. Under North Korea’s criminal code, a person convicted of hostile acts against the state can...

Diplomacy/Terrorism (NK)

May 14, 2009

Obama Cabinet Watch: Still No Hint of a Coherent NK Policy

Perhaps “ready on day one” was setting the bar a bit too high. I dare anyone to find coherence within the dizzying crossfire of U.S. policy statements on North Korea this week. Special Envoy Stephen “Bud” Bosworth just returned from a trip to China, Japan, South Korea, and Russia to “convince the North to come back to the negotiating table” and “take the pulse” of the other four nations that supply the aid that sustains Kim’s misrule. Our diplomats never...

Diplomacy

May 13, 2009

Robert Mugabe Hearts Kim Jong Il’s Missile

[Updated below.] I remember the Zimbabwe of July 1990 as a slightly behind-the-times but functioning country that managed to fix the roads, get the kids to school, grow and export food, and run some very good national parks … and little else. What a difference 19 years of despotic oligarchy can make. Today, North Korea’s number two, Kim Yong Nam, is in Harare as a guest of Robert Mugabe. And how else should the leaders of two nations they have...

Africa/Geopolitics

May 13, 2009

Open Source Center Details DPRK Leadership

Anytime someone claims to have documents that have not been approved for public release and then releases them, I get a bit nervous. Personally speaking, I would never publish anything classified on this site, or any other Web site for that matter, but after discussing this find with Joshua, I can justify sharing this bit of information with you since a) there are no classification markings on the document, and b) it’s already circulating the Internet on a public Web...

Inside NK

May 13, 2009

Media, White House Slowly Catching Up with Social Media Coverage of Lee-Ling Case

With Roxana Saberi’s recent release from imprisonment in Iran, I have noticed an uptick in media mentions of Laura Ling and Euna Lee – a positive change of course coming from mainstream media. While I agree, what may work for Iran may not work with North Korea in terms of dealing with detained U.S. citizens, it’s good to see this case getting more media attention, even if it seems to be treated as an afterthought. (By the way, I have...

Media Criticism

May 12, 2009

Hunger and Anger in North Korea

It’s not news to readers of this site, but North Koreans’ views about their overlords are a bit more complex than the invincible one-hearted unity of Arirang pixels: Public discontent is simmering in North Korea after the hardline communist regime imposed tighter restrictions on market trading in an attempt to reassert its control over the state, observers say. [….] The latest crackdown began after elections on March 8 for a new parliament, according to Good Friends, a Seoul-based research group...

Famine & Food Aid

May 11, 2009

North Korean Isolation Creates Opening for Chinese Diplomacy

With all the drama going on so far this year concerning North Korea, there seems to be one thing missing: China. Whether this is a case of silent diplomacy that the rest of the world will never hear of or testimony to the fragility of the Mainland’s relationship with North Korea, I cannot say, but China’s influence on the DPRK has played a major role in how concerned powers have dealt with the Kim Jong Il regime in the past...

China

May 11, 2009

John Kerry: Clueless About North Korea

History will deservedly remember John Kerry as a failed poseur, a man too self-important and detestable to unseat George W. Bush in 2004, and one of my least favorite American politicians of all time. We are still burdened with Kerry as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in which capacity he spirited the incompetent and congenital liar Christopher Hill to confirmation as the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq. In that capacity, Kerry seems to have learned much from the nominee’s...

Diplomacy/U.S. Politics

May 10, 2009

N.Y. Times: It’s Safe to Ignore North Korea Again!

It’s odd, though, how my mind can’t let go of what’s gone down the New York Times memory hole — alarmist warnings about North Korean nukes, peddled with the meme that George W. Bush transformed a contained North Korea into a grave national security threat. I still remember Nick Kristof warning us of a nuclear 9/11 if the Bush Administration failed to appease North Korea with aid, in the same way that worked so brilliantly for Roh Moo Hyun. ...

Media Criticism/Proliferation/WMD

May 8, 2009

China’s “missing women phenomenon” fueling bride trafficking of North Korean refugees

I’ve been reading a few of the articles to come out of North Korea Freedom Week which was April 26-May 2 in Washington, D.C. and among them was particular story focusing on the bride trafficking industry in China. Not surprisingly, China’s history of favoring baby boys over girls, coupled with its one child policy, has resulted in a severe shortage of women for a generation of bachelors. This shortage is referred to as “the missing women phenomenon” by the World...

Human Trafficking

May 6, 2009

Silent vs. Vocal Diplomacy: More Thoughts on How the State Department is Approaching the Saberi and Lee-Ling Hostage Cases

[OFK: It’s my great honor to present this first guest post from Jodi, formerly the author one of my very favorite K-blogs, The Asia Pages. The end of the Asia Pages left many of us missing the warmth, compassion, honesty, and elegance of Jodi’s writing. I hope this will be just the first of many posts, and I hope you’ll join me in welcoming her.] The United States is in an uncomfortable position: Three of its reporters have been detained...

Diplomacy

May 6, 2009

Oberdorfer to Be Inducted Into Irrational Exuberance Hall of Fame

I like Don Oberdorfer as a person, but he really should ask the Council on Foreign Relations to put this link in a more obscure place: This morning when I turned on the BBC, the newscast started by saying that the last days of the Cold War may be near. They were talking about the developments regarding North Korea at the Six-Party Talks and signing of the latest agreement between North and South Korea looking toward an eventual peace treaty,...

Washington Views

May 5, 2009

South Korea: Always There When They Need Us

South Korea, whose main contribution to the war in Afghanistan so far has been to pay the Taliban a $20 million ransom, has ruled out sending troops there to help fight them. Who still thinks that the unsound fundamentals of the US-ROK alliance have suddenly renewed under President Lee, or doubts that Lee’s decision was an acknowledgement of the anti-American sentiments of South Korean voters, sentiments that can only remain latent for so long? Who still thinks that Obama’s election...

An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea