February 4, 2015

President Obama can’t explain what his N. Korea executive order does

The bottom North Korea story of the day is that Pyongyang, which denies having anything to do with the Sony cyberattacks, has just threatened us with cyberattacks. The North’s military will ratchet up its “retaliatory action of justice” by use of every possible means, including the nation’s “smaller, precision and diversified” nuclear striking means and cyber warfare capabilities, it added. [Yonhap] (I’m taking Yonhap’s word for this, because KCNA isn’t working for me today.) The top North Korea story of...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks
February 2, 2015

It just wouldn’t be Groundhog Day without a N. Korea talks story

I was starting to worry that this day would pass and allow that metaphor to go unused: The countries’ nuclear envoys have been discussing the idea of “talks about talks,” according to multiple people with knowledge of the conversations. But they have not been able to agree on the logistics — in no small part because of North Korea’s continuing Ebola quarantine. “We want to test if they have an interest in resuming negotiations,” a senior U.S. administration official said,...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks
February 2, 2015

Why I’m concerned about the overuse of financial sanctions

As much as I’ve advocated the use of financial sanctions as a potentially effective tool against North Korea, and as much as financial sanctions against Russia appear to have played a significant role in crashing the ruble, it worries me that if we use this tool too much against the wrong targets, we risk blunting the power of our financial weapon. I think North Korea is a good target for financial sanctions because it is (a) dependent on the financial...

Categories Russia/Sanctions
January 30, 2015

Meth prices inching up in North Korea

Rimjin-gang updates us on the meth trade in North Hamgyeong, in the extreme northeast of North Korea: I would say that the buying and selling of these substances are far more active than ever before. The price for these products is increasing. A year ago it was 100 Chinese RMB (around 16 US dollars) for 1 gram. Since the beginning of this year it has increased to 100 RMB for 0.8 gram. A small sack of product, made for only...

Categories Drugs & N Korea/NK Military
January 29, 2015

Does the State Department think there’s a six-month statute of limitations for terror sponsorship? (Updated)

If the Congressional Research Service had its own store at the mall, you’d often find me there at 3 a.m., sleeping in my lawn chair the night before the next release, possibly in some sort of costume. The researchers are smart and genial people, and most of their work has been terrific. There also appears to be some mutuality of readership between us, because as it turns out, the latest CRS report on North Korea’s sponsorship of terrorism cites no less than three of...

Categories Terrorism (NK)
January 29, 2015

How much do we still care about ag reform in North Korea?

If one mark of a good reporter is that you can’t tell how he really feels about his subject matter, then I haven’t much to say for Yonhap reporter Chang Jae-Soon, who cites a post at 38 North by Randall Ireson to declare that North Korean agricultural reforms are working. That’s a daring declaration for anyone to offer in the barren dead of January after so many more optimistic analyses have come to nothing, including those of Randall Ireson. That may be...

Categories Famine & Food Aid
January 28, 2015

Somehow, I don’t think this will encourage Kim Jong Un to engage with us.

I think Marzuki Darusman is a good man who means well, but it’s difficult to derive a coherent policy from this: “This is a new thing, spotlighting the leadership and ridiculing the leadership. In any authoritarian, totalitarian system, that is an Achilles’ heel,” Darusman said in an interview in Tokyo, where he held talks with the government on an investigation into North Korea’s abductions of Japanese citizens. If this kind of ridicule seeps into North Korea, it could become lethal for the regime, he...

Categories Engagement/Subversion/Sunshine
January 26, 2015

Then they came for the Germans: N. Korea’s global censorship campaign

Having seen “The Interview,” I’d rate it as good an artistic fit for the Berlin Film Festival as Klaus Nomi might have been for the half-time entertainment at a tractor pull. North Korean diplomats, however, aren’t widely esteemed for certain qualities — like, diplomacy, or diplomacy, academic rigor, or cultural sophistication. Consequently, when they heard that “The Interview” was to open in Germany on February 5th, they misunderstood that it was on the festival agenda. And they said this: The North...

Categories Censorship/Europe
January 23, 2015

Three Cheers for Obama’s Sony attribution, a golf clap for his “proportional” response.

In The Washington Post, Ellen Nakashima describes how Sony’s decision to cancel the premiere of The Interview catalyzed the Obama Administration’s decision to blame North Korea publicly: The next day, alarmed by the surrender, President Barack Obama convened his top officials in the White House Situation Room and, based on their unanimous recommendation, decided to take an action the United States had never dared before in response to a cyberattack by another nation: name the government responsible and punish it....

Categories Anju Links/Cyberwar/Russia/Sanctions
January 21, 2015

Wanna read about North Korea sanctions law? You know you do.

In the Fletcher Security Review, I attack the myth that our North Korea sanctions are strong, summarize the authorities, describe what has and hasn’t worked, and explain how to make sanctions work as part of a more coherent and effective North Korea policy. ~   ~   ~ Update: See also this Wall Street Journal column, citing yours truly, which I swear I didn’t see coming. If only the author had cited the paper linked above, after I knew the answer to the question...

Categories Sanctions
January 21, 2015

Reports: Musan mine to lay off 10,000 workers; coal exports halted

At the end of last year, the Daily NK reported that North Korea’s iron ore exports to China had stopped, but offered two different explanations for that — a price dispute with China, and a shortage of hydroelectric power caused by drought. One of the reports claimed that the power cuts halted the massive iron ore mine at Musan, which had caused “major disruptions” at the Kim Chaek and Songjin steel mills. All three facilities are propaganda showpieces of North Korean industry....

Categories NK Economics
January 20, 2015

NHK Documentary: Money & Power in North Korea

I haven’t watched it all — was busy finishing another project — but it looks to be an interesting examination of the subject that interests me most about North Korea: its money. It talks about the regime’s “gift politics,” luxury goods trade, the “royal court economy,” money laundering, and hunger. Although the documentary itself is new, some of the info seems a bit dated. There were other things I didn’t know. For example, it claims that in Pyongyang, there’s a massive...

Categories Luxury Goods/Money Laundering
January 18, 2015

Must read: Washington Post on AP’s Pyongyang Bureau

I think Paul Farhi, The Washington Post‘s media reporter, wrote an interesting and balanced article, although I wish he’d stressed the point that I stressed to Farhi — that readers could more easily accept the limits on AP’s coverage if AP would be more forthcoming about what those restrictions are. I want to know more about the terms of the AP’s reporting, both written and unwritten. Farhi did manage to squeeze some of this out of the AP, including the...

Categories AP Watch
January 18, 2015

Forgive Shin Dong Hyok the man, but not Shin Dong Hyok the activist

What had always puzzled me the most about Shin Dong Hyok’s account of growing up in and escaping from Camp 14 was how someone raised in such isolation from the rules of North Korean society could have had the resources and survival skills to infiltrate all the way from the Taedong River to the Chinese border, and then successfully cross it. How did he replace his prisoner clothing? How did he find money to bribe railroad police and border guards?...

Categories Activism/The Camps
January 16, 2015

Actually, sanctions are looking like the best thing that ever happened to engagement

Since December 19th, when the President blamed North Korea for the Sony hacking and cyberterrorism attacks, Congress has been pushing for tougher sanctions against North Korea, and it has looked increasingly like it has been pushing against an open door. And suddenly, a North Korean leader who has never gone abroad or met a foreign leader during his three-year reign (no, Rodman doesn’t count) has taken a sudden — even urgent — interest in personal diplomacy. On January 1, Kim Jong Un made a highly...

Categories Diplomacy/Sanctions
January 14, 2015

N. Korea Perestroika watch: crackdown forces border guards to become robbers

Last week, China filed an official protest with North Korea over the December killing of four Chinese civilians by a rogue North Korean border guard who had turned to robbery. A Bloomberg reporter researches this further, in search of a pattern, and finds one: A spate of murders by North Koreans inside China’s border is prompting some residents to abandon their homes, testing China’s ability to manage both the 1400-kilometre shared frontier and its relationship with the reclusive nation. The...

Categories Border Control/NK Military