Page 225

January 8, 2007

Give Peace a Chance! Announcing the OFK Tokdo Renaming Contest!

With Roh Moo Hyun having proposed “Sea of Peace” to resolve the artificial nomenclature controversy between “East Sea” and “Sea of Japan,” and in the spirit of preventing what would be the most needless conflict since the siege of Troy, it is time for us to take the next logical step and resolve the controversy between “Tokdo” and “Takeshima.” Please join me in making history, and help give peace a chance. I open the bidding with a few suggestions:

Humor/Satire/Japan & Korea

January 8, 2007

U.S. and Japan Quietly Prepare for North Korean Collapse

The Asahi Shimbun said the government has estimated that 100,000 to 150,000 people would arrive from North Korea and has been discussing with the United States how to deal with such a situation. Japan could only provide temporary shelter for several tens of thousands of displaced persons and would need to consider transferring them to third countries in such a case, the Asahi quoted government sources as saying. The refugees are expected to head to southern Japan from ports on...

An Alliance?/Japan/Japan & Korea/Reconstruction/U.S. Military

January 8, 2007

Put This Book on Your List

North Korea expert Peter Hayes – the executive director of the research group Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainable Development – described the novel as ”the best unclassified account of how North Korea works and why it has survived all these years when the rest of the communist world capitulated to the global market a decade ago.””This novel should be required bedtime reading for President Bush and his national security team,” Hayes said. And that was precisely the point of...

Books & Films

January 8, 2007

Will John Negroponte Put Some Steel in Our Korea Policy?

If so, it would be good news. I’ve argued on this blog that the G.W. Bush policy isn’t really that different from the Bill Clinton policy on the fundamentals. Both shared the same set of essential beliefs: that North Korea has a genuine interest in disarming, for the right price; that such a disarmament is achieveable, verifiable, and enforceable; implicitly, that North Korea’s nuclear proliferation can be contained; implicitly, that North Korea is more dangerous if its regime is destabilized...

Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/Washington Views/WMD

January 7, 2007

N. Korean Freedom Coalition Protests Thai Generals’ Pact With China’s Inhumanity

You may recall my previous post about the decision of the Thai military government to launch an “offensive” against North Korean refugees crossing into Thailand after a long and dangerous journey through China. The decision, by a government run by a military junta, reverses what had been the most humane policy in an undemocratic region. As is often true, democracy was only the first casualty; humanity soon became the next casualty. The generals’ decision comes despite the fact that the...

"United" Nations/China/Human Rights/Refugees/Southeast Asia

January 7, 2007

Chinese Police Raid LiNK Refuge, Arrest Three U.S. Activists and Six Refugees

Update 1: I’m going to bump this post up a few times. Meanwhile, I second Kyochan’s advice: Digg the story. I didn’t have an account, but it only took a few seconds to sign up. And I see that Reporters Without Borders is e-mailing half the world over … Saddam Hussein’s execution! Well, here, here! Let’s exhume the old bus-bombing rapist. Scroll down to see my response, and RSF’s reply to that. They claim not to have an opinion on...

Activism/China/China & Korea/Human Rights/Refugees

January 7, 2007

August Statesmanship, Uri Style

Satan: I thought I killed you! Saddam Hussein: Well, where was I gonna go? Detroit? The Uri Party continues to breathe with the assistance of an iron lung and a feeding tube. In that interminable moment after the first mortar round hits the chicken farm, its members are smacking into each other as they all rush for different exits. Thus we have rebellions breaking out within the larger rebellion, led by the incumbent ruling party chair, Kim Geun-Tae. And it’s...

Korean Politics

January 7, 2007

You Can’t Eat Plutonium

The Daily NK previously reported that Pyongyang’s patrician class had swallowed the whole “barrel of a gun” spin after North Korea’s nuclear test. It didn’t surprise me to hear that. I’d even predicted it. I’m equally unsurprised that North Korea’s proles, and some of its urban youth, are less impressed and seem completely disillusioned with the course of things. Young adults in Pyongyang commonly call Kim Jong Il as “that guy,” whereas in the province of Hamkyung, Kim Jong Il...

Deprogramming/Inside NK/Resistance

January 7, 2007

Gerry Bevers, Tokdo, and the Heckler’s Veto

Kind words about your thoughts mean all the more when they come from someone like Kevin Kim, a/k/a The Big Hominid. Kevin, who reads and writes in fluent French, speaks fluent Korean, and creates art and books that people pay real money for, is what people call a “renaissance man.” He’s even created photoshop icons for pretty much every k-blog but this one…. Kevin links to what he calls my “awesome … ranticle” (thanks!) on the Marmot thread about the...

Censorship/Japan & Korea/Korean Society

January 6, 2007

KCTU Thugs May Have to Switch to PVC Pipe

When I testified before the House International Relations Committee last September, one of the issues I raised was a report that the South Korean government was funding “civic groups” that habitually engaged in violence (see page 18), including the protests at Camp Humphreys last year. More recently, some of the leaders of those protests, and other violent anti-American protests, have been exposed and indicted as North Korean agents. This should not have surprised anyone.

An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Democracy/Korean Law/Korean Politics/Korean Society/The Fifth Column/U.S. & Korea

January 5, 2007

Because the Last One Solved So Much …

… South Korea is begging the North Koreans for another summit. Except that it really isn’t: During the interview, Lee said, “Now is the time for the North to give an answer (to the opening of a second summit). I hope the North will prepare fully to hold (the summit) at an early date.” But Lee said it is not proper for the Seoul government to make a specific request about this matter under the current circumstances, apparently referring to...

Appeasement/Diplomacy/WTF?

January 5, 2007

Whatever Happened to Jay Lefkowitz?

The Washington Post sets a new milestone by reading my mind when it asks the question. The position of Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea was created in the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004, which President Bush signed in November of that year. After a long delay in filling the post, President Bush finally nominated Lefkowitz. Despite a few promising words and some forthright challenges to South Korean appeasement and apathy, the White House has never...

America/Human Rights/Washington Views

January 5, 2007

Yet Again, S. Korea Betrays One of Its Own

Updates: A great post with a picture that nearly had me in tears at GI Korea, and another picture here. First, there was Han Man-Taek, a South Korean POW from the Korean War who escaped from North Korea after 50 years in captivity. He had been held by North Korea for all this time, in violation of the 1953 Armistice. Han nearly made it to freedom, when Chinese police caught Han and sent him back to almost certain death...

Abductions/China/China & Korea

January 5, 2007

Yet Another Nuke Test?

Yonhap is reporting suspicious vehicle movements, plus South Korean denials that another test is likely (the power of bilateral engagement and “carrots” will save us … just like before!). Until Google Earth goes real time, the most accurate indicator of a North Korean provocation we ordinary folks are going to get is the exact opposite of whatever South Korea predicts. Update: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice caution[ed] the communist nation that a second nuclear test “no doubt would deepen its...

Appeasement/Japan/Japan & Korea/WMD

January 2, 2007

Kim Jong Il Unplugged, Part 16

East Asia Commercial Bank of Vietnam closed all accounts linked to North Korea on Wednesday after the Macau government indicated it will keep the North’s accounts in its own Banco Delta Asia frozen “as long as legally possible. EACB has been acting as a correspondent bank for customers to remit money to and from North Korea. The U.K. Financial Times on Thursday quoted a letter from EACB deputy general director Nguyen Thi Ngoc Van to its North Korean customers and...

NK Economics/Six-Party Talks

January 2, 2007

Comrade Chung Picks Up Kim Jong Il’s Endorsement

In a uniform editorial in three newspapers representing the North’s party, military and youth militia, North Korea has urged South Koreans to prevent the opposition Grand National Party and conservatives from taking power by any means at their disposal. Commenting on South Korea’s presidential election scheduled on Dec. 19, 2007, the editorial said South Koreans from all walks of life should form an anti-conservative grand coalition and take the presidential election as an opportunity to throw out “conservative, pro-American power.” ...

Korean Politics

January 2, 2007

KBS Confirms It: N. Korean Workers in Europe Are Slaves

Thanks to Mingi Hyun for forwarding, and to my wife for translation assistance. Report, with video, here. KBS has confirmed that North Korean workers’ pay in East Europe is sent to a North Korean government account. The Czech government learned that most of the workers’ pay was sent to the North Korean government and has stopped issuing work visas for North Korean workers. . . . The underwear factory is in the small village of Zebrac (phonetic), in the Czech...

Human Rights/Human Trafficking/NK Economics

January 1, 2007

2007 Portends a Leaner, Meaner Left

As foreshadowed here previously, the Uri death watch is over. Uri Party chairman Kim Geun-tae and former chairman Chung Dong-young in an emergency meeting on Thursday agreed to create a new party, to be called the People’s Party. In a thinly veiled warning to President Roh to keep his hands off, the two said it will be “autonomous and independent from outside political influence. That finalizes the two ex-Cabinet minister’s break with their former boss. Uri will continue to exist,...

Korean Politics/Korean Society