July 26, 2006

Roh’s Former Foreign Minister Attacks His Policies

Yoon Young-Kwan isn’t the only former member of his administration attacking him today, but these two criticisms seem particularly spot-on: He fumed at North Korea, calling Pyongyang “high-handed” in its attitude while it accepts handouts from Seoul. “Economic cooperation,” he added, “should instead help a market economy develop in North Korea.” He continued, “Emotional nationalism appears to rule our society at the moment, because an outdated resistance spirit and passive world view are rampant. Diplomacy is something you do with...

Categories Appeasement/Korean Politics
July 26, 2006

Reading, Writing, Rodong

One reason I don’t think the North Koreans would invade South Korea is the simple fact that their infiltration of the South has been so successful as to render war unnecessarily strenuous. Now, the powerful and well funded Korean Teachers’ Union — remember them? — is caught in the act of flogging juche to its members. The ultimate recipients would have been South Korean kids. Although the KTU didn’t disclose the source of its information, this should have been a...

Categories Anti-Americanism/Korean Education/Korean Politics/Korean Society/The Fifth Column
July 25, 2006

Race for Chairmanship of House Int’l Relations Committee Heats Up

Whoever replaces retiring Rep. Henry Hyde as Chairman will have big shoes to fill, particularly when it comes to Hyde’s blunt moral clarity on North Korea and those who would appease its regime, as well as on Japan’s need to come to terms with its own past. Five candidates are said to be seeking the Chairmanship, presuming that the Republicans hold the House in November. I will express strong opinions on just those of whom I know through the (admittedly...

Categories Washington Views
July 25, 2006

China Frees the Shenyang Three, But Keeps Feeding the Dear Leader

They’re on their way to America now. You will recall that these refugees originally entered the South Korean Consulate, then overpowered a guard, jumped a wall, and entered the U.S. Consulate next door. I don’t necessarily see this as a sign that Chinese-North Korean relations are cooling, by the way. With the refugees safely inside an American Consulate, the Chinese and the Americans alike really had no choice but to allow this at some appropriate time. And although there are...

Categories China/China & Korea/Famine & Food Aid/Human Rights/Refugees
July 25, 2006

Free at Last?

The Koreans have been relatively free for some time now. But if a new bill passes, the American men and women who help secure that freedom may be able to put outrages like these behind them: The bill aims to prevent discrimination in all public and private sectors including employment and education. Discrimination would be defined based on 20 criteria, including gender, physical disability, religion, age, nationality, race, skin color, appearance, pregnancy, ideas and sexual preferences. Under the bill, indirect...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Korean Law/Korean Society/U.S. & Korea
July 25, 2006

Let Them Make Won!

Update: Gee, how curious. Police recovered a briefcase containing a hoard of probably forged United States Treasury bonds worth $500 million during the investigation of a local theft, Seoul’s Gwanak Police Station announced. Police said they are looking into the possible involvement of international crime networks. ===================================== With Seoul questioning why the United States is making such a big deal out of North Korea’s counterfeiting of its currency and saying it “will take no further steps” against it, the Chosun...

Categories Appeasement/Counterfeiting/U.S. & Korea
July 24, 2006

Now What? Part 3: Dave, What Are You Doing?

Update: The BOC account played a role in the 2000 summit scandal, according to the Chosun Ilbo. What skill it must take to step in it this hard: SEOUL, July 24 (Yonhap) — North Korea is suspected of having printed fake Chinese currency, which prompted the Bank of China (BOC) to freeze all of its North Korean accounts in an apparent retaliation, a South Korean legislator asserted on Monday. Quoting a number of unidentified U.S. officials, Rep. Park Jin of...

Categories China/China & Korea/Counterfeiting/NK Economics/Six-Party Talks
July 24, 2006

Dram Man on the FTA

Dram Man has probably been following the issue as closely as any K-blogger, and details six reasons why “you can stick a fork in this baby.” Update: That may explain why the government is now asserting that it will stick with Kaesong, a non-starter with the U.S. side, as an FTA must-have. This sounds like the position of someone who wants to satisfy his base, and who knows that there won’t be an FTA. Update 2: The U.S. postion on...

Categories NK Economics
July 24, 2006

On Again

Update 7/25: Off again. How do you say “stall” in Korean? The North Koreans now say they’re returning to the six-party talks. Let’s hope the Bush Administration doesn’t call off Stuart Levy. I suspect his variety of communication has been much more effective than Nicholas Burns’s. Odd, isn’t it, that all of that alleged Chinese pressure and dearly purchased South Korean influence couldn’t bring them back to the table for so many months? Yet when a U.S. Treasury official flies...

Categories Diplomacy/Drugs & N Korea/Six-Party Talks
July 23, 2006

MUST READ: NYT on NK Counterfeiting

The New York Times has a very extensive article on North Korea’s counterfeiting operations: By 1984, as North Korea’s planned economy began to fall apart, Kim Jong Il, who by that time was effectively running much of the government, issued another directive, according to the North Korean specialist, who told me he has obtained a copy of the document. It explained that “producing and using counterfeit U.S. dollars” was a means, in part, for “overcoming economic crisis. The economic crisis...

Categories Counterfeiting/NK Economics/Washington Views
July 23, 2006

Kim Jong Il Marries Yonsama in Private Vermont Ceremony

Hey … look at these pics and tell me I’m off base here. Tell me these are really two different people. Ever seen them at the same place and time? Didn’t think so! . . . . . . . . Oh, sure, you could decide to believe the “authorized” reports, like those from Chosun Ilbo (Korean only), the Joongang Ilbo (English) and Yonhap (English), but who are you going to believe? Them, or your own eyes? Big hat tip...

Categories Humor/Satire/Kim Jong Il
July 23, 2006

And They Wonder Why Relations Are Deteriorating

Update: Ouch. You can clearly see how this administration has moved to the left from where it began. UniFiction Minister Lee Jong-Seok says the United States “failed the most” when North Korea launched its missile. You thought, perhaps, those whose main event exploded 45 seconds after launch? The rising superpower whose uncontrollable satellite managed to cement a U.S.-Japanese alliance? The government whose incalculably costly and increasingly unpopular appeasement policies were exposed as a worthless sham at the push of one...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/U.S. & Korea/WMD/WTF?
July 22, 2006

Now What? Part 2

Right after North Korea launched its round of missiles, I outlined a series of options, mostly financial, that the U.S. and other countries could take in response. Two weeks later, several aspects of that forecast are holding up well. What looked at first like another U.N. farce, then a modestly successful sanctions effort (by U.N. standards, anyway), now looks to be an important and hard-won component of a coordinated effort to tighten the squeeze on the regime-sustaining half of North...

Categories Appeasement/Counterfeiting/NK Economics/U.S. & Korea/WMD
July 22, 2006

The Death of an Alliance, Part 45: An October Surprise?

[This is an updated post, originally published Saturday morning (22 July 06). An interview with the USFK Commanding general has partially confirmed what it asserts, so I’m supplementing the old post rather than starting a new one.] Jodi at The Asia Pages appears to be the recipient of some inside information that a dramatic reduction of the U.S.-Korean military welfare state alliance will be announced this fall, which coincides high-level security consultations scheduled for October. According to Jodi’s source, the...

Categories An Alliance?/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
July 21, 2006

‘Truly Evil’

Not starving millions of your own people to build missiles for attacking cities in other nations, but the idea that one of those nations might try to protect its citizens from them. There’s only one way I can make that statement remotely comprehensible — by recalling that Roh won’t protect his own citizens. Just as a reminder, we have 30,000 troops in Roh’s country, with a resulting defense cost savings of $60 billion a year. I wonder how much of...

Categories Appeasement/Japan/Japan & Korea/U.S. & Korea/WMD
July 21, 2006

Axis, Schmaxis, Part 3

There is a theory in this city that a fundamentalist Sunni Muslim terrorist group would not dream of establishing an operational relationship with a secular Sunni Muslim terror-supporting tyrant or a fundamentalist Shiite Muslim terror-supporting tyrant. Believers in that theory are going to have real trouble wrapping their heads around the idea that the latter fundamentalist Shiite Muslim terror-supporting tryant’s minions joined a group of pork-eating, soju-swilling aetheist idolator infidels for a night of fireworks on the Fourth of July....

Categories Axis of Evil/Iran/Terrorism (NK)/Uncategorized/WMD