February 21, 2008

North Korea’s Economy: Does Change Equal Reform?

The experts agree that North Korea’s economy has changed in the years since it shed a couple of million people, give or take a million. There’s some consensus that the survivors have learned to trade, and that markets have grown. There’s also some consensus that regime officials are participating to a degree. There ends the consensus: some claim that reform is again afoot; others claim that change is driven by necessity, and that official participation is mostly a matter of...

Categories NK Economics
February 21, 2008

The Morally Retarded Lorin Maazel, Part 2

Lorin Maazel could really use a publicist who understands the concept of “stop digging.” Just when we thought we’d put this flame war behind us, he goes off again, in the Wall Street Journal’s opinion page. With time for further reflection and careful editing, here’s how he rephrases his central point: If we are to be effective in bringing succor to the oppressed, many languishing in foreign gulags, the U.S. must claim an authority based on an immaculate ethical record,...

Categories Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/Deprogramming/Human Rights/WTF?
February 20, 2008

Anju Links for 20 Feb 08

I’LL BELIEVE IT WHEN THEY SEE IT: The New York Times reports that the N.Y. Phil’s concert in Pyongyang will be broadcast live on North Korean TV. I doubt it. North Korea has perfected pulling away the football an instant before Charlie Brown kicks it. That would be as easy as letting the power go out. Then there’s this question: how will anyone really know? Does the fact that something shows on TV in the Koryo Hotel means that North...

Categories Anju Links
February 20, 2008

Hill Denies Nukes Talks Stalemated, Larry Craig Still Not Gay

One day, I must cease picking on poor Larry Craig. Maybe tomorrow. Though Hill denies the obvious, at least for now, he’s sticking to his guns on the North Korean declaration: But Hill said that is not good enough for the “complete and correct declaration” that was promised at the arms talks. “We cannot pretend that activities don’t exist when we know that the activities have existed,” he said, without giving specifics. [IHT] North Korea also continues to deny any...

Categories Six-Party Talks
February 20, 2008

Updates on the 22 Executed North Koreans

Original post here. – Via the Joongang Ilbo, the South Korean NIS claims that they found oysters in the two boats, and that they notified President-Elect Lee’s transition team of the impending repatriation. (Note that various descriptions of the boats continue to be wildly inconsistent — fishing boats? rubber rafts? powered or unpowered?). – Via the Chosun Ilbo, outraged North Korean refugees are finding their voice, and giving us some factual context: The [Committee for Democratization of North Korea] slammed...

Categories Appeasement/Human Rights/Refugees
February 20, 2008

The Restoration: More on Lee M.B.’s Cabinet Picks

Lee Myung Bak has announced some more cabinet picks. I’ve already given my strong approval to his pick for Unification, and I like his pick for National Defense, too: Lee Sang-hee, former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, will be the defense minister, sources also said. Lee is known for his hard-line stance toward the North. After the North fired seven missiles on July 5, 2006, the Blue House called it “high level political pressure.” Lee openly criticized the...

Categories Korean Politics
February 19, 2008

Anju Links for 19 Feb 08

MINISTER OF SILLY TALKS: Chris Hill is seen entering the North Korean Embassy in Beijing to try to rescue the deadlocked Agreed Framework 2.0. I’d say hopelessly deadlocked, except that we have no idea what Hill is prepared to offer in exchange for more of Kim Jong Il’s lies. Be very afraid. So far, however, the talks seem to have been unproductive. YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: The Chosun Ilbo links and quotes Pajamas Media’s interview with John McCain. Really,...

Categories Anju Links
February 19, 2008

Honor, Delayed, Part 2

Kim Jong-Seon, who bitterly denounced Roh Moo Hyun’s appeasement-driven snubbing of memorial services for her husband and five other sailors killed in a 2002 naval battle with North Korean warships, has announced that she will return to South Korea. Now she has changed her mind, motivated by reports that president-elect Lee Myung-bak’s Transition Team and the Defense Ministry decided to upgrade the memorial service for the victims of the West Sea Battle to a state event. The ceremony has so...

Categories Appeasement/ROK Military
February 19, 2008

S. Korea’s Next Unification Minister Denounced as “Collapsist” and “Neocon”

The left-wing Hankyoreh is predictably disgruntled about the new Unification Minister: Nam [Joo Hong] is your typical member of the “school of collapse. He has consistently claimed that there are signs that a sudden situation could arise in the North, saying that it has problems in five major areas, including food, energy and succession. Immediately after the February 13 agreement was made, he said that the crisis management ability of the leadership in Pyongyang was reaching a breaking point. Naturally...

Categories An Alliance?/Korean Politics/Reconstruction/Regime Change
February 19, 2008

It’s an Honor Just to Be Nominated

Parade Magazine has named Kim Jong Il the world’s worst dictator for 2008, edging out the butchers in charge of Sudan and Burma. Which is quite a distinction. Kim Jong-il runs the most isolated, repressive regime in the world. His citizens have no access to information other than government propaganda. His harsh system includes collective punishment (three generations of a family can be punished for one member’s alleged crime); detainment of roughly 200,000 citizens in labor camps; and the capture,...

Categories Human Rights
February 17, 2008

Yonhap: N. Korea Executes 22 Who “Drifted” into S. Korean Waters

Public execution in Hoeryong, North Korea, 2005 Just one week remains in leftist President Roh Moo Hyun’s disgraceful term of office, yet his Sunshine Policy is still killing North Koreans. That policy was generous to the man who lives in this palace, but for the rest of North Korea’s people, it has always meant “die in place” and “you are not welcome.” And while there’s much we still don’t know about this incident, I didn’t believe the official story from...

Categories Appeasement/Human Rights/Refugees
February 16, 2008

Anju Links for 16 Feb 08

MAY IT BE HIS LAST: It’s Kim Jong Il’s birthday: The North’s main Rodong Sinmun newspaper ran a lengthy editorial full of praise for Kim for making the communist nation an “undefeatable strong country” by strengthening its “political and military force.” “We have to unite and unite again around the leadership, upholding the slogan ‘Let’s safeguard the revolutionary leadership led by Comrade Kim Jong Il with our lives!’” the paper said, according to the North’s Korean Central News Agency. It...

Categories Anju Links
February 16, 2008

Damn You, Henry Kissinger!

That bastard Kissinger … thanks to him, Gong Li will never knock on your door to borrow a cup of sugar, and all of our lives will be poorer in ten million ways: Amid a discussion of trade in 1973, Chinese leader Mao Zedong made what U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger called a novel proposition: sending tens of thousands, even 10 million, Chinese women to the United States. “You know, China is a very poor country,” Mao said, according...

Categories China/WTF?
February 15, 2008

More Bush Loyalists Criticizing His N. Korea Policy

It’s not that surprising to hear the Japanese sounding disgruntled about the failure of Agreed Framework 2.0, but dissent from Bush Administration loyalists is less expected and more significant. I don’t think it’s fair to call Michael Green or (especially) Victor Cha opponents or skeptics of Agreed Framework 2.0 itself, but previously, they had been stalwart defenders of the current strategy. The fact that they are even gently criticizing Secretary Rice and Ambassador Hill for their spinelessness in the face...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/Washington Views
February 15, 2008

Are They Losing Their Fear?

When I spoke of the many recent signs that the erosion of state control is accelerating in North Korea, I said that the erosion of fear would be the decisive factor. So I watch things like his carefully: Discontent with the top leadership is growing in North Korea writes Lee Ki Dong, a Researcher at the Institute for National Security Strategy. Lee published a paper entitled “An Analysis of Changes in the North Korean Political System Based on the Testimonies...

Categories Regime Change
February 14, 2008

An Anniversary, But Nothing to Celebrate

Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of Agreed Framework 2.0. So, how is that working out? North Korea threatened Friday to block progress in the six-party talks over its nuclear programs, claiming efforts by U.S. hardliners to disrupt dialogue with Pyongyang could aggravate the current standoff. The North also said it will have no choice but to take a certain measure “provided the U.S. warmongers keep taking a tough stance” against the communist state. The six-party talks hit a snag as...

Categories Six-Party Talks
February 14, 2008

The Blue House Lied, People Died: How Appeasement Kills in North Korea

Today, the Chosun Ilbo helps us to peel away the myth of unmonitored “humanitarian” aid to North Korea. The aid wasn’t going to the people who needed it the most, and Roh’s government knew it all along. South Korean military authorities have known since 2003, when the Roh Moo-hyun administration was inaugurated, that North Korea has transported rice supplied by the South for humanitarian purposes to frontline units of the North Korean Army. The South Korean military has admitted it...

Categories Appeasement/Famine & Food Aid