Search Results for “bank of dandong”

October 13, 2015

The more North Korea trades, the more it reforms, right? Wrong.

Yesterday, I questioned the premises of economic engagement with Pyongyang — that Pyongyang is socialist, that trade is capitalism, that capitalism inexorably erodes socialism, and that capitalism (least of all, state capitalism) is inherently liberal and peaceful. I argued that Pyongyang adopted state capitalism decades ago, and that it has grown steadily more menacing and repressive ever since. It feigns socialism to feed our false hopes of reform and arguments against sanctions, to tempt investors, to recruit apologists who embrace its socialist pretenses, and to justify the...

Border Control/Capitalism/Censorship/Class Warfare/Engagement

June 8, 2015

Guerrilla Engagement: A strategy for regime replacement and reconstruction in North Korea

~ 1 ~ One day, either this President or the next one will awaken to the realization that the regime in Pyongyang is collapsing, and that he has just inherited the costliest, messiest, and riskiest nation-building project since the Marshall Plan. The collapse of North Korea will present South Korea – and by extension, its principal treaty ally, the United States – with a nation-building challenge unlike any in recent history. After all, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria all had some...

Capitalism/Reconstruction/Regime Change/Resistance/Subversion

March 4, 2015

North Korea evades U.N. sanctions with shell games, spell games, and whack-a-mole

On any given day, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control may publish several pages of new designations for the list of Specially Designated Nationals. Inevitably, most of the designations will be designations of aliases. That’s because one of the oldest sanctions-evasion tricks is renaming an entity, so that when banks type its name into their software, they don’t get a hit that might warn them to decline the transaction, block the account, or file a Suspicious Activity Report....

"United" Nations/Proliferation/Sanctions/WMD

September 13, 2014

On Think Tanks, Propaganda, the Foreign Agents’ Registration Act, and Korea

Washington is a marvelous city for someone like me. Where else could a foreigner, an outsider like myself, do the things I was able to do? – Tongsun Park, to the House Ethics Committee, April 1978 A detailed story in The New York Times, examining grants and gifts by foreign governments to U.S. think tanks — and how those gifts influence scholars (and through them), voters, policymakers, and Congress — has caused much controversy and discussion in Washington this week....

U.S. & Korea/U.S. Law/Washington Views

December 31, 2013

North Korea’s circular firing squad

The reaper has come for two more key North Korean diplomats: South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said that Pak Kwang-Chol, an associate of the young supremo’s uncle and political regent Jang Song-Thaek, was seen returning home after making a brief stopover in Beijing. The envoy and his wife were reportedly escorted by North Korean officials onto a flight to Pyongyang. Sweden is an influential diplomatic player in Pyongyang, AFP said. Since the United States and North Korea have no diplomatic...

Kim Jong Un/NK Economics

August 21, 2013

North Korea’s “charm offensive” coincides with growing international financial pressure

Observers in the West and South Korea tend to grasp (even gasp) at subtle or superficial changes in the tone of North Korea’s words, but the consistency of North Korea’s actions has always refuted the interpretations of these observers. No charm offensive ever interrupted Pyongyang’s pursuit of nuclear weapons or its willingness to proliferate nuclear or chemical weapons technology. Even its provocations, often described as “unpredictable,” follow a cycle that has become familiar to Korea-watchers, including the President of South Korea....

Anju Links/Money Laundering/Sanctions

January 18, 2011

The Great Wall of Rason: Kim Jong Il’s Grand Sell-Out

Over the weekend, as I was poring over relatively recent new imagery on Google Earth, I spotted the chilling sight of a fence line — the kind of fence line that until now, I’ve only seen around North Korea’s political prison camps. This was a mystery to me, since I believed that I’d located and delineated the last of the large prison camps years ago. I followed the fence line, wondering what I’d found, until I’d traced it for the...

China & Korea/NK Economics

May 24, 2010

Overthrowing Kim: A Capitalist Manifesto

[Originally published at The New Ledger, May 2010; edited for brevity in October 2017] Within the next 48 hours, South Korea is expected to announce that North Korea torpedoed and sank the warship Cheonan and killed 46 of her crew. Among the evidence the multinational investigation will cite will be the North Korean serial number on the torpedo’s propeller, recovered from the ocean floor. The sinking of the Cheonan may be the most serious North Korean provocation since 1968 —...

Capitalism/Regime Change

May 10, 2010

10 May 2010: If They’ve Lost Fred Hiatt ….

If China really is “a moderating, useful influence” over North Korea, why did it roll out the red carpet for Kim Jong Il and reportedly offer him a $100 million bailout while it is the prime suspect in an action as dangerous and provocative as sinking the Cheonan? Suddenly, another bulb goes on at the Post: Despite all the time spent in six-party talks in recent years, and all the discussion of China’s new role as a “responsible stakeholder” and...

Anju Links

August 13, 2009

China Finally Enforcing N. Korea Sanctions, Kinda?

To say the very least, I remain deeply skeptical that China’s effort will be sustained, complete, or in good faith, but here are two stories that suggest to some degree, China is restricting trade with North Korea. The first (as the reader who sent the link notes) comes directly from the ChiCom state media, so take it with a tablespoon of salt. Shan, who has run the corporation for 16 years, said he has forged close relations with officials in...

"United" Nations/China & Korea/Kremlinology/Sanctions

July 20, 2009

Sanctions Upates

The big headline this week is the U.N.’s agreement on a list of entities to be sanctioned under UNSCR 1718 and 1874 (see links on my sidebar for the texts). Frankly, I think that’s a story that’s getting a great deal more attention than it merits. The sanctioned entities have largely been sanctioned under Executive Order 13,382 for years. I doubt that the U.N. imprimatur is going to fend off many of North Korea’s WMD clients that the Treasury Department’s...

"United" Nations/Axis of Evil/China/Missiles/Money Laundering/Proliferation/Sanctions/WMD

March 19, 2009

North Korea Detains Two (?) U.S. Journalists

As you see, the reports conflict as to how many incidents there were, how many journalists were detained, and on which side of the border: Embedded video from CNN Video The preponderance of reports thus far suggest that two American journalists with the network Current TV were arrested — and if this is confirmed, it would be fair to say “abducted” — from the Chinese side of the Yalu River while filming North Korea. Two American journalists on a reporting...

Abductions/Media Criticism/Refugees

October 21, 2006

Dance, Little Piggy! (Kim Jong Il Unplugged, Part 14)

Most observers had speculated, since at least 1994 or so, that North Korea has the capacity to create a crude nuclear weapon. That appears to be exactly what they demonstrated recently, meaning that the only real news was our need to recalibrate Kim Jong Il’s brass-to-brains ratio. I didn’t guess whether he’d actually go through with it, but I did believe that he’d try to time it just before the U.S. election if he did. I also guessed that if...

An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/China & Korea/Diplomacy/U.S. & Korea

Search Results for: bank of dandong